


Begged for mercy twice

by Gem_Gem



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Plug, Attempt at humour, Awesome Irene, Awkward Conversations, Awkward First Times, Awkward Sexual Situations, Awkwardness, BAMF John, Begging, Cock Rings, Dom John, Dom/sub, Episode: s02e01 A Scandal in Belgravia, I like to tease lovely readers, I thought I'd write better, I'm Sorry, Jealous John, John Talks Dirty, John is a Detective, Light Bondage, Light Dom/sub, Light Masochism, Love Bites, M/M, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pansexual Sherlock, Possessive Behavior, Possessive John, Rope Bondage, Sherlocksexual John (It's a thing now), Short Chapters, Spanking, Sub Sherlock, Teasing Chapters, Voyeurism, light whipping, not a threesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-01
Updated: 2016-02-25
Packaged: 2018-04-18 09:49:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 26,723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4701566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gem_Gem/pseuds/Gem_Gem
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I was inspired to write this after reading <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/1182194">"Get The Message?"</a> by <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/users/ChloeWeird/pseuds/ChloeWeird">ChloeWeird</a></p><p> </p><p>"...it’s not hard to make Sherlock beg, so it’s not that impressive. That’s all.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Bad Influence

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ChloeWeird](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChloeWeird/gifts).



> “I would have you right here on this desk until you begged for mercy twice.” Irene purred intensely, her eyes locked onto Sherlock with such passion that John felt the heat of it from his place across the table. After a long moment of them staring at each other, John snorted and shook his head, earning himself two sets of eyes locked onto his face.

John glanced between them and only spoke when Sherlock arched his eyebrow in question, “What? I…I just, thought it was amusing—don’t you?”

“Amusing?” Irene asked with bemusement and interest. “About what I said? Why? I assure you I’m very good at what I do, John.”

The way she said his name had John lifting his brows, but he shook his head, “I’m sure you are, but it’s not hard to make Sherlock beg, so it’s not that impressive. That’s all.”

Sherlock’s face twitched, “John, please can you check those flight schedules; see if I’m right?”

“Know from experience, do you, doctor?” Irene grinned, beautiful and alluring and wholly amused, as she turned to flick her eyes at Sherlock.

“Yes, actually,” John replied with a playful grin, enjoying the banter and the look of outright outrage on Sherlock’s face, coupled with the teasing and interested one on Irene’s.

“John, if you would—” Sherlock began shortly, only to be interrupted by Irene as she leaned on the table towards John.

“Twice?” She asked John ardently.

John huffed through his nose and leaned one elbow on the table, lifting his hand and three of his fingers, “Thrice.” 

Irene beamed at him and arced both eyebrows with intrigue before Sherlock pushed her aside and slammed his hand down on the table, “I’ve never begged for mercy in my life—John, the flight schedules! We don’t have time for silly games.” 

“Oh, I don’t know,” Irene murmured, still looking at John as she spoke. “I think we have time for just one.”

John peered at Sherlock and then sat back, lifting his hands, “I’m on it. Give me a few moments,” he told Sherlock’s incessant and demanding look, typing on his laptop but looking up at Irene with a grin. Irene returned it with one of her own and then turned to look at an annoyed Sherlock, straightening to be closer to him and stare into his eyes.

“Okay, yeah, you’re right,” John told Sherlock looking up from the screen of his laptop to smile at him, waiting for Sherlock to gesture for the flight number before John frowned softly and folded his arms, tilting his head in expectation. 

“John,” Sherlock demanded, scowling when John blinked slowly at him in response and then snatching for the laptop. John pulled it quickly out of the way. “John!—”

“What do you say?” John said, talking over him and sharing a look with Irene, who laughed silently with entertainment, winking at John. 

Sherlock frowned deeply, “What?”

“What do you say?”

“…Please.” Sherlock muttered tightly with a jutting of his chin and a rapid and irritated tapping of his fingers. 

John leaned forward with a look of disapproval, “What was that?”

“Please,” Sherlock repeated a little louder and sincere after a moment of silence, flitting his eyes between Irene and John with a frustrated look. “Please, will you read out the flight number, John.”

“Impressive,” Irene said with a gentle rumbling of laughter laced in the word. “Not exactly what I’d call begging, but impressive nonetheless.”

“Double oh seven,” John told Sherlock as he chuckled and replaced his laptop on the table as he looked at Irene. “That was just showing off. I’ve got him trained to do all sort of tricks.”

“Double oh seven, double oh seven, double oh seven, double oh seven...” Sherlock mumbled quietly to himself, pushing away from Irene and pacing. “...something...something connected to double oh seven...What?”

“I’d love to play witness to these…tricks,” Irene whispered as she and John both watched Sherlock move. “Can you make him roll over?”

John snorted and Sherlock jerked at the sound, blinking rapidly as he looked over at them, “What are you two talking about?” he demanded, glancing between them. “Stop it, whatever it is. I’m trying to think and I can’t when you’re both conspiring behind my back—John, move away from her. She’s obviously a bad influence on you.”

“Aw, look,” Irene cooed, leaning her hip against the edge of the table and folding her arms as she looked Sherlock up and down with a heated gaze that Sherlock frowned at in confusion. “Now, that’s just adorable.”

“What? What’s adorable? I’m not adorable,” Sherlock retorted, waving his hands at her with a hiss through his teeth. “Shut up! Just, both of you shut up, I’m trying to think—John, move away!”

John huffed and got up, walking from Irene who gave him a surprised look, “I’m just popping to the loo,” John told her as he moved passed Sherlock with a grin and a wink that Sherlock scowled at.

Once he returned John stuttered and stumbled on his feet at the sight of Sherlock on his knees, topless and restrained by the wrists with what looked like the sash of his dressing gown. Sherlock looked up at him with an arched eyebrow and a contorted mouth, as if annoyed and expectant at the same time, and John blinked in puzzlement, catching Irene’s impish gaze with a question that died on his lips the second she smiled at him and something in his gut clenched.

“Go on then,” She said, tipping her elegant chin down at the kneeling Sherlock.

“…How did you even get him in that position without a fight? Didn’t drug him again, did you?” John huffed weakly in a light-hearted but strained way as he stepped closer and cleared his throat awkwardly, unable to keep eye contact with Sherlock as he continued to stare up at him. “I…um, I was joking, you know. With what I said before? Yeah, it was a joke. Just…messing about—was stupid of me, obviously, seeing as you thought I meant it. I’m not gay. Sherlock is…Sherlock. I was just…trying to be funny.”

Sherlock tilted his head up with a sigh, straining to look back at Irene, “I told you.”

Irene didn’t seem put off or disappointed and only smiled wider, eyeing John with a dark, glistening gaze as she turned Sherlock’s head back around to face John, “Come now, John…don’t leave a girl waiting.”

John hesitated a moment and then shook his head, motioning for Sherlock to get up, “I really didn’t mean—”

“Make him beg.”

“Listen—”

“Or I will.” Irene purred, draping her arm around Sherlock’s bare shoulders and resting her head into his curls. Sherlock peeked at her as she cupped his jaw with her other hand and then looked at John with an impassive expression, but John noticed the tightening around his mouth and swallowed hard.


	2. Teasing Touch

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm weirdly struggling with this story, even though I had it all planned out in my head beforehand...
> 
> It seems to be going into another direction and then I seem to stutter and pause in surprise.
> 
> Anyway! It is now four chapters long!
> 
> A big thank you to [KittieHill](http://archiveofourown.org/users/KittieHill) for putting up with all my complaining and constant spamming with bits of the story! It helps so much that I can just pass over something to ask for instant feedback!

After a heavy and pregnant pause, John strode around them without a word, caught a glimpse of Sherlock’s face as it twisted in surprise and then quickly shuttered blankly, and began clearing things off the desk without looking back. He could feel Irene’s stare heating the back of his neck but refused to acknowledge her until he had removed everything and brushed down the desk surface with a few brisk swipes of his hand. Irene’s face was smooth and sophisticated in the light streaming from the windows, and she smiled at him wickedly, very faintly running her fingers along the back of Sherlock’s shoulders, making Sherlock’s muscles twitch and his skin to prickle in gooseflesh in reaction.

“I, um, I just have to make him beg, right? Then this whole…insane, situation can be over?” John assumed as he walked to stand at Sherlock’s side, feeling the tension running off Sherlock in thick waves. He looked down in time to see Sherlock swallow again and clenched his hands, shaking his head. “This is ridiculous—I was joking, Irene. And Sherlock, why the bloody hell did you allow this to happen?”

Sherlock’s jaw muscles jumped, “I was proving a point.”

“What point?”

“I didn’t think you’d go through with it,” Sherlock told him with a casual shrug, adjusting his bound wrists and avoiding all eye contact with him.

Irene chuckled slickly and carded one hand through Sherlock’s curls, petting him until Sherlock growled and shook her off, glowering up at her smug expression sullenly. She flicked her eyes up to John from under her lashes, and John regarded the way she canted her hips before he turned to angle his body to address Sherlock.

“Get to your feet.” He ordered with a strict and uncompromising tone. His hand steady as a rock as he clicked his fingers inches from Sherlock’s stunned face. “Up.”

Irene took a step back and folded her arms, looking eagerly entertained, and Sherlock blinked, jerking his gaze to stare up at him, “John—”

“Get up.”

Sherlock blinked again, flitted his wide eyes from Irene to John and around the room, a crease between his brows, and fumbled up onto his feet, “You’re really going to do this? Not gay, remember?”

John glanced at Irene and back, wetting his lips, “There’s nothing gay about this.”

“Not yet,” Sherlock huffed.

“No one said anything about it being sexual,” John pointed out, flashing a self-assured grin in Irene’s direction, which faltered and died when Irene didn’t react. “I never mentioned anything about it being sexual.”

“Are you dense?” Sherlock suddenly sneered with a curt bite to his words, jabbing his elbow in Irene’s direction with an awkward twist of his torso. “She’s a dominatrix, John. Her entire professional career, as well as her personal life no doubt, revolves around the pleasures of the flesh. What exactly did you think you were both discussing at my expense? The weather? Everything you two uttered was some sort of sexual double entendre or euphemism; how was that not clear to you?”

John glared and ignored Irene’s soft titter to confront Sherlock’s tense face, “I know that, but it was a joke. I was joking. People do that, you know. It doesn’t have to mean anything—and anyway, how do you explain the fact that you agreed to be bloody topless and tied up, if you knew what sort of…interests Irene has? Why lead yourself, willingly, into such a position?” 

Sherlock almost stomped his foot as he took a step into John’s personal space, “Because I thought I was safe to assume that you’d decline the very idea of—”

“Well, that was a mighty big oversight for you, wasn’t it? The great Sherlock Holmes was wrong again. Better watch out, Sherlock, or I might think you’re losing your touch.” John teased with a very small and light-hearted sneer of his own, pointing then to the desk when he caught the tickled glint in Irene’s eyes. “Get on the table.”

Sherlock stubbornly straightened to his full height, “No.”

“Now.”

Inspecting John’s face intently, Sherlock glanced at Irene, adjusted his shoulders, and walked over to awkwardly sit on the edge of the desk. John inclined his head, turned sharply on his heel and moved to stand directly in front of Sherlock, pushing on his collarbone until Sherlock grunted with an exaggerated grievance and lay back with a slight grimace. John examined the stretch of Sherlock’s torso and how he was resting on his bound hands, and then looked over at Irene as she pulled a chair aside and settled in to watch enthusiastically, sitting close to Sherlock’s head.

“Don’t worry,” She told him, crossing her legs with a smile. “It won’t cut off circulation, and he can’t get free. Safe bondage is my specialty.”

Sherlock lifted his head with a frown and instantly began moving and twisting his arms, struggling and writhing until the desk creaked under his weight and John held him still by his waist with amusement. Sherlock let out a huge, strained, annoyed breath, and stilled, looking sulky and angered.

John waited until Sherlock’s attention was back on him before he lifted and outstretched his left hand, running it an inch away from Sherlock’s skin and up along his stomach, chest, and along his collarbone. Sherlock watched him, shifted in confusion, and arched his eyebrow, but John kept his eyes down and moved his hand back to Sherlock’s stomach, crossing over Sherlock’s ribs, making sure not to touch.

“What are you doing?” Sherlock murmured, and craned his head to peek at Irene for guidance, only to have her wink at him. “John?”

With his hand hovering above Sherlock’s body, John continued to trail the entirety of his hand, and then his fingers, through the air just shy of touching Sherlock, and observed the faint, involuntary twitching and quivering that followed. Sherlock exhaled through his nose after two silent minutes had gone by, and twisted his pelvis into a better position on the desk, shooting John a look of pure frustration and uncertainty. John smiled in return and shared a knowing look with Irene as he kept up the movements of his hand, drifting his right over Sherlock’s navel, twirling his index finger above, just barely brushing the hair trailing below.

Irene hummed lightly and John looked at her again. Grinning, Irene was staring at John with immense enjoyment and he felt a well of laughter build in his throat at the feisty and attractive wrinkle of her graceful nose. Sherlock, not amused with their antics, sighed and tried to retreat into his mind palace to leave them at it, but John slapped his sternum sharply and brought him back with a curling grin, hovering his hands once more above Sherlock’s quivering skin.

“If you’re going to touch me, then touch me,” Sherlock barked, lifting his hips with a sudden motion and knocking his head back on the desk surface when John withdrew both hands. “You’re an idiot if you think this is—”

John jerked his hand above Sherlock’s nipple and Sherlock tensed, focusing intensely and automatically on it, still expectant and vibrating with anticipation even after John wriggled his fingers together inches away from the puckering flesh, filling the air between them with the sound from the skin of his fingers sweeping together.

Sherlock clenched his teeth, “I shan’t do it. The pleading that you both expect will not happen. You’re wasting your time. Both of you. You’re just aggravating me.”

“Don’t I always?” John murmured lowly, blowing out a purposeful slow and long breath, making Sherlock’s stomach dip. “Anyway, I told you, this doesn’t have to be sexual. Aggravation works. You might get so aggravated that you beg for me to stop. Still, technically, begging that.”

Sherlock mumbled something incoherent under his breath and then looked up at the ceiling, trying but failing to ignore the ghosting of John’s hands, “This is a little sexual…”

“Really?” John frowned, dropping his arms to his sides. “I thought you said I’m just irritating you? It would only be sexual if you were aroused. Which you’re not.”

Sherlock’s lips tightened for a millisecond and he bent his body onto his side a little, shivering when John slid his hand slowly near Sherlock’s back with a questioning look, “Right?” John muttered, catching a glimpse of Irene as she smirked.

“You’re being an idiot on purpose,” Sherlock complained.

John felt his mouth quirk and looked straight at Irene as he then pressed down and stroked a line up Sherlock’s side with his index finger, watching Sherlock tic at the sudden and long touch from the corner of his eyes, “I’m proving a point.”

Sherlock stilled stiffly when John pushed him onto his back again and rubbed his palms suddenly over Sherlock’s pebbled nipples and down his ribs, “Oh…” Sherlock breathed, seeming overcome for a moment. “What point?”

The distracted way in which Sherlock blinked made John drag his nails down Sherlock’s instantly juddering stomach. Irene’s reaction was a filthily suggestive smile and a slant of her head, and John drove his fingers back up to skim over Sherlock’s nipples, watching her watch him as he trapped the hardened tips between his fingers until Sherlock arched compulsorily and tried to squirm away.

John circled his areolas teasingly, using the rough pads of his fingertips lightly and then with more pressure, pinching slowly when Sherlock’s face crumpled and he accidentally kicked out with a strangled and quickly muffled sound in the back of his throat. John smirked and ran his fingers up Sherlock’s strained throat, up and over his cheeks, and into his hair, massaging his scalp skilfully to the point of immense relaxation, only to then return to Sherlock’s nipples to fondle them until they flushed darkly.

“John,” Sherlock rumbled through clenched teeth with a half-hearted glare as he tensed and sat up slightly, trying to dislodge John’s hands by fidgeting and turning. John arched his eyebrow in reply and skated his entire hand across Sherlock’s chest, blowing a breath deliberately over Sherlock’s right nipple with a silent laugh at Sherlock’s bared teeth.

Sherlock bit down firmly on his bottom lip, clenched his eyes shut, and then shook impulsively with a barely contained whimper when John pressed his thumbs down on both nipples and pushed Sherlock back against the table.


	3. Toys and Safewords

“I think you should get out your toys, Doctor Watson,” Irene suggested with an excited purr.

Sherlock shot a blushing look in John’s direction and narrowed his eyes, “Toys? What toys?”

“Don’t you know?” Irene laughed, eyeing John impishly.

“Know what? John is not as depraved as you,” Sherlock scoffed before he caught the expression on John’s face and hesitated. “…John? You…wait…”

John cleared his throat a little uncomfortably and Irene flashed her teeth in a quick smile when he looked at her, “I…don’t think that will be necessary.”

Irene curved her left eyebrow, “I think it is.”

“It really isn’t,” Sherlock argued, sitting up quickly. “I’m done.”

“…Want a safeword?” John asked him as Sherlock tried to shuffle off the desk.

“A…what?”

Irene clapped her lean hands together happily and inclined forward, “Oh, yes. Pick something funny.”

“I don’t need a safeword—Why would I need a safeword? What are you going to do?” Sherlock asked sounding and looking lost and anxious with a blush blooming unevenly up his chest and neck. “Untie me.”

John nodded, ignoring Irene’s shocked glance, and tried not to grin, “All right. That’s fine. I can understand that you’re scared—”

“I’m not scared,” Sherlock cut in quickly with a sudden scowl.

“Good,” John replied, inwardly happy when Sherlock scrutinised him with gathering curiosity and relaxed back onto the table, only looking huffy when his head slipped off the edge of the other side briefly. 

Sherlock glanced between John and Irene as he settled, “I know what you’re thinking, and you’re both wrong.”

“Oh?” Irene huffed in laughter.

“The reverse psychology tactic.”

“It worked a little,” John said.

Sherlock glared, “No.”

John rolled his eyes and then awkwardly patted his leg, “I’ll…go get those…things, then?” he asked, meekly looking at Sherlock, who nodded with a nonchalant shrug that John didn’t believe for a moment. “God I can’t believe I’m doing this…”

As he left for his bedroom with a panicking but competitive mind-set, he eyed Irene and dithered at her suggestive smile. He shook his head with furrowed brows and a demanding, adamant expression, and waited until Irene lifted her hands in surrender, squirming in her chair, before he left Sherlock alone with her and jogged quickly to his room and back, carrying a black box that he placed beside Sherlock’s naked hip.

Sherlock and Irene simultaneously arched their necks to peer inside, and John coughed, embarrassed when Irene clicked her tongue in disappointment, “You’ve removed some,” she stated.

John pulled out a black leather collar with a ring at the front where two chains were attached, each with a black clamp dangling at the end of them. Sherlock eyed it with a tensing of his stomach and shoulders, and his Adam’s apple bobbed as he glanced up at John with an overly forced vacant stare. 

John unbuckled the collar slowly with a flush, “You can adjust the pressure on the, um, on the—”

“Clamps,” Irene finished for him with a naughty curving of her mouth.

“It’s not actually mine,” John told them when Irene chuckled. “Belonged to a…girlfriend…”

Sherlock and Irene both looked at him unimpressed and unconvinced, and John licked his lips, frowned deeply, and slipped the collar around Sherlock’s throat with a gradual crawling of his fingers, tightening it securely with a practiced hand, that didn’t go unnoticed. John picked up the clamps as they rolled over Sherlock’s chest, and opened one with a slow and steady grip, reaching out to Sherlock’s left nipple first. Taking a breath and glancing fleetingly at Irene, John clipped it on carefully and jerked back when Sherlock shouted and arched, automatically trying to reach for it with a bound hand.

“Take it off!” Sherlock complained with a hiss, wriggling violently and then slumping with a shaky breath when the collar only served to tug on the clamp with his thrashing. Sherlock shivered and Irene leaned further forward in interest, gesturing to Sherlock’s growing blush with her eyes.

John successfully stifled his laugh and reached over to twist a screw to adjust pressure, “Better?” 

“You masochist,” Sherlock murmured, making Irene snort gently with hilarity. 

With a flush of heat, John adjusted the pressure of the other clamp and clipped it on vigilantly, “You’re one to talk,” he muttered, tugging on the clamps to see Sherlock press his lips together.

“Will you be using the gag as well?” Irene purred.

Sherlock turned his head indignantly, “What’s the point of a safeword if I’m wearing a gag?”

“Do you want a safeword? If so, pick one now,” John said faintly under his breath as he took the gag from the box and blushed so hard that his ears went hot. “We…don’t have to use this. I…just…thought...God, I don’t know what I thought.”

Irene stared at the teeth marks on the ball gag with interest, “Nothing innocent, that’s for sure.”

“Hm. Well, he has always wanted to shut me up,” Sherlock smirked, glancing at Irene and then arching with a high-pitched shout when John tugged on the clamps in response, twisting them slightly and adjusting the pressure just to see Sherlock squirm and grind his teeth. 

“Safeword?” John asked again shortly, releasing one nipple of a clamp for a moment and then pinching it back into place again when Sherlock grunted. 

The desk creaked as Sherlock fidgeted and pushed away from John with his foot, half falling off the edge, “Don’t you want me to beg for mercy?”

John dragged him back and only noticed that Sherlock’s legs were either side of his hips when Irene made a low noise, “You want “Mercy” to be your safeword?”

“Makes the most sense,” Sherlock replied through his heavy breathing that he tried desperately to even out. “Well, not exactly, but…”

Irene re-crossed her legs slowly, “You have to say it twice.”

Sherlock altered the position of his shoulders and glowered at her, “Fine.” 

“Good,” John said and tugged on the clamps again before he reached into the box to retrieve a small bullet vibrator, lifting it to display to both Irene and Sherlock as he turned it on. “Better keep that word on the tip of your tongue then.”

Sherlock frowned and licked his lips nervously, watching as John cycled through the vibration speeds in quick succession and then lowered it ever so slowly towards the clamp on Sherlock’s right nipple, pressing it down. Sherlock jerked and his jaw twitched as he fought to control himself, holding back noises until John increased the vibration and he gasped and shuffled with a hitching moan, kicking out and bending his torso sideways to try and get away from the sensations. John followed easily with a broad grin.

“Beautiful,” Irene whispered. 

“Shut up,” Sherlock snarled breathlessly, stifling a whine when John increased the speed again, and arched his head back only to pull the chains holding the clamps taut and hissing. 

John pulled the device away and turned it off when Sherlock began shaking, the skin of his forehead beading with sweat, and reached back into the box to pull another one free along with two elastic bands. Irene looked impressed as John tied the small vibrators to the clamps carefully whilst Sherlock swallowed hard and shifted, his chest heaving, and then John shot him a small smile before he turned both devices on.

“Funny, isn’t it? How sensitive they can be?” John murmured conversationally while Sherlock twisted and writhed on the desk, arching his head back and then shuddering when the chains heaved on the clamps. “Not everyone is the same, though…so I sort of went out on a limb here.”

“Worked out great,” Irene commented.

John smirked and dipped a finger into Sherlock’s belly button, admiring the flex of Sherlock’s muscles, “Let’s see what…else works.”

“Y-you’re exper-exp-experimenting on me now?” Sherlock asked through his uncontrollable movements and muffled moans, the sinew in his arms tensing as he tried to struggle free.

“Let’s start at the head,” John said, lifting a finger with a laugh at Irene’s improper grin. “Not that head. His trousers are staying on.” 

Irene chuckled, “No fun.”

John ignored Sherlock’s scalp and mouth, and reached for his ears, caressing his fingers down with varied degrees of pressure. Sherlock’s ears and face were pink, his cheekbones a darker, blotchier shade, and John couldn’t help but find the sight mesmerising, having not seen Sherlock so ruffled and overwhelmed before. The touching at his ears caused no immediate response until John swept his fingers behind Sherlock’s earlobe and Sherlock inhaled sharply, tilting his head from one side to the other and then arching it back so roughly that he pulled the clamps suddenly off his nipples with a loud snap. Sherlock bucked with a garbled shout, and John stepped back in surprise, grabbing the clamps as they rolled free.

“I think that’s an affirmative on the ears,” John chuckled awkwardly, letting Sherlock breath heavily for a moment or two and then turning off the vibrators.

“What about the neck?” Irene asked and shuffled her chair closer to where Sherlock’s head rested to reach over and slide one slim finger and fingernail over his clavicle, leaving a faint red scrape in her wake. 

“Don’t!” Sherlock snapped, and flinched so hard that the desk moved over the floor an inch.

“Don’t touch him,” John told her with a surprising amount of possessiveness, and looked away with a frown and a cough, as Sherlock peeked at him from the corner of his eyes and snubbed Irene until she sat back with an attentive expression, and John gently replaced the clamps. “It’ll…mess with the results of the experiment. Heh.”


	4. Whipped

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...Okay so there will be five chapters now...

Silently, with a gathering blush of his own, John stimulated Sherlock’s abdomen with faint scratching and tickling and stroking, and huffed with a smile when Sherlock spluttered out a soft laugh followed by a crinkle of his nose, almost knocking John in the face with his knees when he bent his legs up. He looked almost suddenly younger and boyish as he did so, and John tickled him a moment longer to keep the innocent expression on Sherlock’s face.

“Tempted just to tickle you until you give in now,” John told him, scratching down his sides and then stroking around and then inside Sherlock’s navel, filing away the trembling it caused and then smoothing his finger around it in short circles until Sherlock’s entire middle was blotched with colour. “Do you like that? Affirmative on the navel as well then.”

“Quiet,” Sherlock replied gently, with a shaking of his thighs when John suddenly caressed along his pelvis in mindless, keen touches of his fingertips. 

Empowered and engrossed, John beamed and shot a smug glance at Irene as he ran his hands up Sherlock’s expanding ribs, tweaked the nipple clamps, and turned the vibrators back on. Irene motioned to the obvious bulge at Sherlock’s crotch when Sherlock arched his back and John glanced down, clawing a temporary path down Sherlock’s stomach.

“J-John.” Sherlock murmured huskily after he’d gotten his breath back enough to speak, his throat strained as he tried to act calm and stop his squirming to move his elbows in a way that didn’t look like he was merely struggling. “Could you…my arms?”

“Sure,” John said lowly without any hesitation or thought, and turned Sherlock onto his side to reach for the sash used to bind his wrists.

“You sure you want to untie him? Here, let me,” Irene stood fluid and graceful, and stepped over, however John swatted her suddenly away with an instinctive slap of his hand and looked up at her with a tight smile.

John manipulated the knot and dug his fingers expertly into it, pulling it free with a display of arrogance, “It’s okay. I got it.” 

Sherlock moved back into place, stretched his arms, rolled his shoulders, and then held his wrists back out to John submissively, “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” he replied, tying him back up and regarding Irene under his brow as he did so, his mouth stretching up on one side. Irene returned the look with a stunned and awestruck flutter of an expression, and sat back down.

Testing the binding strongly, Sherlock let out a stuttering sigh and draped his arms above his head, bending them a little to grip the edge of the table and shimmed closer to John without looking at him, his body stretched out compliantly, muscles quivering. John smoothed his hands up and down Sherlock’s torso, and then trailed his fingers along the soft skin of Sherlock’s arms, vaguely tickling as he bent inelegantly over him to reach Sherlock’s hands and fingers, glancing at Sherlock’s face when he caressed John in return with such a slight and discreet move that John was sure Irene had missed it.

Sherlock peered up at him fleetingly and then turned his head, displaying the scratch Irene had left on his skin. It made something in John churn and burn, and he leaned back, grabbed Sherlock’s waist firmly, and dragged him closer to senselessly bite down on it, sucking hard to cover it in a bruise until Sherlock groaned and turned his head down against him with a moist breath. John lurched back with wide eyes and lifted his hands in shock, taking several steps aside and avoiding the glint in Irene’s contemplation.

“I…sorry. I didn’t mean to…” John mumbled, scratched the back of his neck and then rubbed his face, feeling the need to flee but shoving it back down at Irene’s challenging aura, resolved to ignore what had happened. Sherlock stared at him in disbelief, the mark already dark on his pale skin, and then Sherlock shuddered, bending his torso as the vibrators continued their work. “…Roll over.”

Sherlock lifted his head with a frown at the tone of John’s voice and blinked slowly, “Sorry, wh-what?”

John motioned with his finger, looking at Irene as he repeated his words, “Roll. Over.”

“Roll…?” Sherlock glanced down at the clamps and then licked his lips apprehensively. “Roll over?”

“Yes.”

Sherlock hesitated, “Onto my—?”

“Now.” John said curtly.

Sherlock snapped his jaw shut and narrowed his eyes, glancing at Irene only for a moment, before he tensed and rolled over as ordered. The sound of the vibration was loud in the room as the clamps pressed into the wood of the desk, and Sherlock grunted with a muffled gasp and jolted, grasping the edge, forcing himself not to lean up onto his elbows to get away. John walked back over to him, slid a hot hand up Sherlock’s spine, and then pushed Sherlock’s head down to squash his cheek to the wood as well, holding it in place.

“Irene,” John began with a deep and oddly unwavering breath, raising his voice over the sound of the vibrators. “Go into Sherlock’s room and fetch me the riding crop, would you? There’s a good girl.”

Irene tilted her head with a quirk of her lips, and stood up sinuously as Sherlock resisted John’s hold, “No. No, John, you can’t.”

John signalled for Irene to stop with his other hand, “Are you going to use your safeword, already?”

Sherlock hesitated for a second too long and then flexed his shoulders, “…No.”

“Good,” John grinned, nodding at Irene. He wanted for her to leave the room and then bent down, threading his fingers through Sherlock’s hair to get his attention, unwilling to recognise how much he enjoyed the sound of the vibrations against the desk and the heat radiating off Sherlock’s bare skin. “Are we…really going to do this?”

“This was all…your fault,” Sherlock hissed, eyes glazed but still intense. “You started this.”

“No—”

“Yes!” Sherlock interrupted. “Did you really think it would end any differently with you speaking to her like you did? You theoretically implanted the idea in her head to have you make me—you’ve never made me beg. Forcing me to say “please” does not count as making me beg. I’ve never begged for anything.”

John moved his hand to the middle of Sherlock’s back and pressed, digging the vibrating clamps a little harder into Sherlock’s chest, “Liar.”

Sherlock quaked and his lips parted wetly against the table, “I…I’m not…lying…”

“Yes, you are. You’re very good, don’t get me wrong. Sometimes you lie so spectacularly that I often question your words for days after…but I know you’re lying about this, because I’ve been there when you have indeed begged…”

“I don’t beg! I’ve…never…”

John smirked at Sherlock’s shrill and breaking voice, feeling his confidence return tenfold, and pressed down a little more, before sliding his hand up to stroke a few fingers along Sherlock’s nape, “Perhaps not with words, but you do.”

Sherlock wheezed and pressed his lips into a tight line to stifle a moan, his hips shaking a little, “No.”

“Yes,” John whispered, glancing at Sherlock’s bedroom door when Irene strolled back out, her hips swaying. She held the crop out to him and John took it slowly, eyeing it, and then the dip of Sherlock’s spine in thought. John dragged the end of it in a zigzag pattern down Sherlock’s back and then tapped the dimples above his covered backside.

Irene and Sherlock both understood what John was hinting at in the same second and watched tersely as John stroked the crop up Sherlock’s side and arm, then around to tickle the back of his neck, before moving it back down to tap thoughtfully again.

“You…you said my trousers were staying on,” Sherlock mumbled as he pushed up onto his elbows only to have Irene press him back down.

John looked over at her and she angled and swung her arm faintly in a graceful arc, and John mimicked her action, bringing the crop down across Sherlock’s shoulders with a sharp smack. Sherlock didn’t react at first and then he tensed and shook with a startled puff of sound, a faint red line where John had struck him blossoming across his skin. John stared at it, captivated, and then adjusted his grip and brought the crop down again, and then again, moving down Sherlock’s back with each strike.

Sherlock gasped and jumped quietly until John hit across his hips and he groaned croaky and lustful, leaning up on his elbows when he automatically thrust, “W-wait.”

John returned Irene’s stretching smirk and slapped the crop down across his hips again, watching Sherlock squirm and perform another unconscious thrust, “Sorry?”

“Wait,” Sherlock repeated, then again in a rumble, before he blinked listlessly and quivered, looking back at John and then over at Irene. “You’ve…had your…game.”

Irene lifted her brow and John slapped the crop down on Sherlock’s hips again, “Say that again?”

Sherlock inhaled loudly and scrambled against the desk, “Wait… please…”

John stepped over and stroked his right hand over the heated, lightly red skin, “Use your safeword, twice, and we’re done, Sherlock.”

Shaking, Sherlock licked his lips and panted for longer than strictly necessary, and then gradually lowered his torso back down onto the desk, holding back a moan when the vibrating clamps connected with the wood once again. John slid his hand up Sherlock’s back, over his shoulders, and then up into his hair, and snapped the crop down as soon as Sherlock relaxed. The groan that escaped Sherlock’s throat was guttural and wet, and he turned his head aside to lean on his cheek with unfocused eyes.


	5. Ring

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...Fine, six chapters then!

As John gently whipped Sherlock’s shoulders, back and hips, Irene walked to stand closer to Sherlock’s head and bent to peer into his face, blowing his fringe aside to expose the dark flush. Sherlock glared at her weakly and then began rocking against the desk each time the crop connected with the sensitive skin of his lower back, grunting lowly and staring blankly out at her with loosely parted lips. Irene watched him intently and then moved to John’s box, taking out a flexible cock ring pointedly, her eyes flicking to Sherlock and then to the ring, before settling on John.

“…What?” John muttered missing his next swing at the sight of the cock ring held between her thumb and index finger.

Irene gestured with it as she spoke, “You wouldn’t want the game to end so quickly now, would you?”

“What do you—? I’m not putting that on him,” John told her as Sherlock panted heavily. “I…no, no. Put it back.”

“There was a reason you left it in,” Irene pointed out smugly. “I can put it on him, if you’d rather not?”

John shifted his stance with unease, “I…I don’t…” he mumbled, and stood back rigidly when Irene brushed passed him to push Sherlock onto his back, unbuckling his belt; oblivious to John’s sudden and repeated surge of possessiveness. Sherlock arched his spine at the first contact to the wood beneath him, and then lifted his head, frowning suddenly and struggling.

“Wh-what are you doing?” He demanded breathlessly, knocking her away with his bound hands and looking scandalised. “Trousers stay up.”

“You’re close to orgasm,” Irene stated unashamed, grinning when Sherlock spluttered in opposition. “Now, we either put this on you, to delay it, or...you do your thing and each and every sensation increases in sensitivity.”

Sherlock glowered feebly, “The sensations will increase in sensitivity anyway,” he told her; unable to stop twisting his torso as the vibrating clamps were pulled when he looked over at John. “Why did you leave it in there?”

“I…don’t know,” John said, clearing his throat and snatching it from Irene. “Go sit back down, Irene, and…Sherlock, um, is she right, are you? Close to orgasm?”

Sherlock sighed sharply and shuffled to the edge of the desk to grab the ring from John’s hand, shaking when the clamps were disturbed and acknowledging John with a quick smile when John turned the vibrators off for the moment, “Fine. I’ll put it on—”

“Do you know how to?” Irene asked teasingly as she sat. “Have you ever used one before?”

Sherlock glared at her, “Yes!” snapped, glancing slowly at John and clenching his jaw at the look John gave him, before conceding. “No—but it can’t be that difficult, surely.”

Irene watched them from her place, leaning her chin on her upturned hand, “Why not let the Doctor help you—?”

“Shut up,” Sherlock huffed. “…But fine.”

John swallowed thickly when Sherlock held it back out to him, but straightened his shoulders and took it, reigning in any sort of professionalism he could muster to try and see it through as impersonally as he could, whilst Sherlock finished unbuckling his belt and then undid his trousers. Irene shifted, trying to look around Sherlock’s side for a peek, and Sherlock turned to block her view, hunching over purposely as he opened his fly and hooked his underwear down over the obvious shape of his erection.

“How did we get here?” John muttered rhetorically and put down the crop with a sigh. 

Once freed, Sherlock’s hardened penis slapped noisily against his stomach, smearing pre-ejaculate thickly a few inches above Sherlock’s navel, and John averted his gaze. Sherlock covered it with bound hands in a meek motion at noticing John’s reluctance, though exposed himself again a second later with an arching of his eyebrow, feigning confidence. John sighed and looked down, and tried not to fully examine Sherlock’s genitals as he stepped up close and handled the hot, tight skin of Sherlock’s length.

The moment John touched him; Sherlock’s penis twitched, wetting John’s fingers, and making the application of the cock ring easier. John glanced up into Sherlock’s eyes as he slipped the ring into place and what Mycroft had insinuated at the palace suddenly reared its head in the back of his mind, and John panicked until Sherlock gave him such a dark and wanton look, that he froze with his hands against the pulse in Sherlock’s cock. Sherlock parted his lips and then lifted suggestively into the loose grasp of John’s hand with intention, barely moving but still managing to smear his shaft along John’s fingers.

John swallowed thickly and swayed forwards when Sherlock dipped his head encouragingly, but the creak of movement as Irene shifted on the chair snapped John out of his odd trance-like state and he stepped back, wrenching his hands away. Sherlock blinked, looked left and right rapidly, and then reached down to carefully slip himself back into his underwear before turning around and bending over the table. The position was different from the one before, as Sherlock wasn’t lying over it with his feet dangling awkwardly from the edge, but had his feet planted on the floor and was keeping his lower half off the desk as much as possible, his hips angled very lightly away.

Picking up the crop, John tried not to focus on the fact that Sherlock had left his belt and trousers undone, and walked up close, slipped his free hand underneath Sherlock and turned the vibrators back on. Sherlock gave the barest of twitches but remained silent, his face angled to be tilted towards Irene, keeping his expression hidden. Irene was staring at Sherlock, her mouth pursing and moving as if she were talking without actually parting her lips, and John felt a bubbling of something moving inside him and brought the crop down across the skin of Sherlock’s shoulder, harder than before, and arched his eyebrow when Irene glanced over. She beamed at him with a gleam in her eyes and John whipped Sherlock’s lower back three times, in a quick sequence without pause, smiling back when Sherlock groaned openly and scrambled on the desk, rutting.

John made sure to keep eye contact with her as he reduced Sherlock into a writhing and gasping mess, and grinned broadly when Sherlock began uttering his name, quiet at first, but then gathering in volume the longer John smacked lightly at Sherlock’s back and shoulders, smearing the head of the crop along Sherlock’s sweaty nape and briefly behind his ears. Sherlock was blushing with hooded eyes and a wet mouth, drooling a little, but he tensed and blinked quickly with attention when John curled his fingers around the waistband of Sherlock’s trousers and tugged it down, crumpling the hem under Sherlock’s exposed buttocks. Sherlock shot up onto his bound hands in protest but John brought the crop down with an echoing smack, still staring at Irene, and Sherlock gaped, shook and inhaled sharply.

“J-John, wait, you…you said that—” Sherlock tried before the crop connected with his backside again and he thrust into the desk so hard that it moved across the floor loudly, knocking into Irene’s chair. “Ooh—Oh God. John, please…”

Without looking, John stepped over the short distance the desk had been pushed and dragged it back into place with one hand and a rough grunt. He smacked the crop down twice more on Sherlock’s backside, and once on his shoulders, forcing him back down onto the table and onto the vibrating clamps, and then suddenly dropped the crop mindlessly, breathing hard. John closed his eyes briefly, swallowed, became attuned to a sole droplet of sweat as it welled and slid down the right side of his face, and swung his hand back.

The first slap of skin on skin was so loud and sudden that it shocked even John himself, as he jerked and broke eye contact with Irene to stare down at his hand and the red handprint left against the pinking skin of Sherlock’s buttocks. Sherlock had gone as still as a statue, hardly breathing, and John followed the line of his spine in the thick silence that followed, gawking at the back of Sherlock’s head with his heart in his throat and the palm of his hand burning and tingling from the force.

Irene looked down at Sherlock’s face and smirked, “Don’t look so startled,” she said softly in amusement. “This has been a long time coming, for you. Don’t you agree, Doctor?”


	6. Get the message?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * People want more and...and so do I, I think that's partly the reason why I left it on a sort of cliffhanger.
> 
> So...it's going to be seven chapters! (maybe more)

John blinked and looked at her, saw the mischievous way she gazed at him, and watched, transfixed, as Sherlock trembled in response and tensed his backside with a low and entirely wavering sound. John waited for Sherlock to lean up and protest again, waited for him to put an end to everything, waited for the angered and dark look he would receive and the shattering of their friendship; but Sherlock remained prone, even shivered in anticipation, and John started to speak with a frown, his eyes jumping to Irene again. She gestured to Sherlock pointedly and then made a motion with her hand and mouth that had John swinging his hand back for another hit, his whole hand bouncing off the pert curve of Sherlock’s left buttock and then off his right.

Sherlock gripped the desk and then groaned so huskily that John found himself answering to the sound with a throaty noise of his own, his hand connecting with Sherlock’s hot skin again and again, the slapping sounds filling the entire living room. John changed the pace of his hits, slowed down, only to then speed up and spank Sherlock in an almost endless succession. 

“Mm—Ah, John!” Sherlock panted, his voice strained as he breathed rapidly, almost to the point of hyperventilating. “Please…please, please, please…John…John I…”

John stopped, breathing hard himself, and thoughtlessly spat on his fingers, rubbing it softly into the marks on Sherlock’s skin with a shaking breath, “Yeah…”

Irene leaned forwards and brushed back Sherlock’s hair, tilting his head, and peered at his face for a long while, “Sherlock?” she whispered, stroking his cheek and then brushing her fingers through his curls. 

“Go away,” Sherlock slurred after a moment, head lolling in her grasp. “John…John?”

“Yeah?” John replied, clearing his throat when his voice came out a few octaves lower. He walked over to him and bent down to finally look at his face fully, and froze at the slack, glazed expression as Sherlock sluggishly lifted his eyes. “You all right?”

Sherlock gawped at him, unmoving, and then seemed to jerk back to himself after a few seconds and nodded against the desk, “Yes…”

Irene still had her fingers in Sherlock’s hair and John glanced at them, then pushed them away with his own, cradling Sherlock’s face in his hands, “Do you want to stop?” he whispered.

“No,” Sherlock breathed, his mouth quirking. “I’ve not…begged for mercy twice, yet…”

“True,” John grinned, and checked his pulse and temperature automatically, powerless to ignore the way Sherlock shivered under his touch. “Do you want some water?”

“I might ejaculate soon,” Sherlock admitted in such a low and soft breath that John almost missed it. The vibration against the wood seeming extra loud in the room now that John had ceased the skin on skin contact.

Peeking at Irene, John turned to block her from view subtly and bent closer, “Yeah? You…sure?”

Sherlock sighed and lifted his head a little, scowling half-heartedly at John, “No. I’m lying,” he said sarcastically, nudging John with his sweaty forehead. “That…ring, only kept it at bay for a short time—well, until a few minutes ago. If you…I just wanted you to know that if you…continue, then I may…”

John nodded when Sherlock trailed off, “Okay…” he breathed. “I suppose you’re telling me this for more than just a…warning?”

“Well, I don’t want to make a mess of myself either,” Sherlock snapped weakly, before he’s eyes slipped aside and he lowered his voice even more. “And get rid of her.”

“You don’t want her to—?”

“No.”

John looked away and pretended to recheck Sherlock’s pulse again, just as an excuse to touch him, “This whole thing is happening because of her. I’m…meant to…show her that I can have you begging…remember?” he muttered, lifting both his eyebrows. “She wants to see that I—”

Sherlock turned to push his entire mouth against the skin of John’s wrist, “Don’t care.”

“I…sort of want to rub it in her face, though,” John declared before Sherlock looked at him and he backtracked. “Why don’t you put on a…a condom? So you don’t make a…mess…”

Sherlock dropped his head back down to the desk slowly, “Fine.”

“Can you get up?” John asked softly, looking down Sherlock’s back to stare at his rosy and trembling backside, and the dimples above. He imagined what it would be like to sink his teeth into every inch of marked skin and quickly blinked, straightening up a bit.

“You do it,” Sherlock mumbled and sluggishly moved his hips back as invitation with a shudder, lifting his exposed pinked backside into the air.

“Me?”

“You.”

“But,” John took several slow and deep breaths, snatching his gaze away from Sherlock’s body. “I really don’t think you need me to do it. Surely you can put on a condom yourself, Sherlock?”

Sherlock blinked indolently, “Would you rather, Irene do it?”

“No,” John said in as close to a growl as he’d ever heard one. “No…but…can’t you…”

“I want you to do it,” Sherlock whispered, one corner of his mouth turning up as he added even quieter. “Master.”

John gaped and then snorted with a giggle, lifting his eyes to look at Irene. She was beaming at him and holding out a condom packet already picked out from John’s black box, and he took it with a sly expression, sharing a self-conscious smile with Sherlock who looked at him lazily and shivered against the desk in one full bodied ripple.

“All right. Okay. I…yes,” John prattled and gave one more look at Irene before be strolled back to where Sherlock was still holding up his shaking hips. “Do you… need any cream or anything for the…the…”

“No,” Sherlock exhaled, closing his eyes when John opened the condom wrapper and awkwardly reached around to Sherlock’s crotch.

As he pulled Sherlock from his underwear, Irene’s gaze dropped as if she wanted to try and catch sight of Sherlock’s genitals, and John glared and smacked his hand down on the desk hard to get her attention, making Sherlock flinch. John signalled for her to keep her eyes up and stared at her as he rolled the condom on Sherlock’s slick erection without looking, covering Sherlock back up as much as possible afterwards.

“Liquid Satin,” Irene idly mentioned, making John first glance at her and then his box, reaching in to pull the bottle of lubrication out. “Very snazzy.” 

John smirked and popped the lid off with his thumb unconsciously, causing the muscles in Sherlock’s back and thighs to clench, and looked down at it, then over at Sherlock’s backside, before he glanced over at Irene again in vague deliberation. Irene arched her eyebrow and curled up one side of her mouth, making a suggestive motion with her fingers.

“No,” John mumbled.

She huffed gently, “Why not?”

“Because…I…we’re not…this isn’t…” John trailed off and swallowed, pressing his mouth into a firm line, and slapped his hand down on Sherlock’s backside again, feeling a spark of heat shoot up his body when Sherlock gasped, rocked against the desk and groaned. He tried to ignore Irene’s promiscuous nature and her challenging eyebrow lift, and continued to spank Sherlock over and over again until Sherlock was shaking uncontrollably and gleaming with sweat.

Wheezing, Sherlock squirmed slowly and licked his lips, “M-muh…”

“Mercy?” John predicted as he rested his hand on the burning red skin of Sherlock’s buttocks, regarding Irene attentively as she leaned forward to inspect Sherlock’s face carefully. “Hm?”

“Muh-more,” Sherlock moaned deliriously, his mouth unfurling in a wild and wanton smile, lips wet with saliva that pooled on the desk at his chin.

John’s mouth jerked upwards eagerly, “Beg me.”

Sherlock blinked listlessly and frowned, seeming rebellious and stubborn until John cupped both his hands over Sherlock’s abused buttocks and squeezed, “O-oh! Ah! Yes… P-please…please, John. Please! Oh God, I…I need to…I’m so close…please, please, please!” He slurred, lightly lisping as he writhed and panted.

John waited until Irene locked gazes with him and then spoke, “Say the safeword, Sherlock. Say it, and I’ll let you come.”

Shaking, Sherlock shook his head limply but John trailed his fingers lightly over the skin of his backside and up his spine to stroke at the nape of his neck, teasingly light, “Mm…but…but John…”

“Say it.”

“M-Mercy.”

“Again.”

Sherlock groaned as John clawed his fingers down Sherlock’s back, slipping them around to tug on the nipple clamps, “Mercy…”

“Say it twice, again,” John growled lowly.

“John, John, please! Please, John…I—Mercy! Muh-mercy! Mercy, John, for God’s sake, please!”

John inhaled roughly and picked the crop up without realising it, snapping it over Sherlock’s lower back, then at the tops of his thighs to make Sherlock cry out with satisfaction. He dropped the crop again in the next moment and drizzled lube over his fingers before slipping them thoughtlessly between Sherlock’s quivering thighs, pressing up at his perineum skilfully.

He smirked wickedly over at Irene, hardly in control of himself, and Sherlock choked wetly on a garbled breath, rutting violent and erratic in four quick bursts, before he then went taut with sudden orgasm, howling in intense pleasure and scrambling at the desk with his bound hands. John stroked him through it eagerly, panting hard and flushed with heat, and only pulled his hand away when Sherlock whined, struggled, and trembled fiercely, kicking his legs a little.

“Leave,” John growled under his breath at her.

She blinked, taken back, and withdrew quickly from where she was leaning toward Sherlock, as John took the crop and snapped it near her hands, “Wh-what…?”

“Leave,” John ordered and pointed to the bathroom. “Leave this room. Now.”

Irene stood cautiously and with interest and tensed when John took a step forward, “You need to make sure he’s—”

“Out.”

“But, John, surely you know about subspace—?”

John took several more steps forward and Irene retreated back, her cheeks flushing and her eyes dilating till she obeyed and strolled to the bathroom, shutting the door behind her gently, leaving them alone. John walked to where Sherlock’s head rested, dropped the crop, cradled Sherlock’s face slowly and bent down to connect their mouths, breathing heavily against him until Sherlock pursed his lips and returned the kiss with a thick and willing moan.


	7. Mine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * There shall now be a lot more chapters! The amount will depend on you lovely readers who asked me to write more of this fun story!  
> Your wish is my command!

The kiss was chaste even though Sherlock’s mouth was overly wet and hot, and John stroked Sherlock’s cheek, looking into his eyes, “You all right? You still with me?”

“Yes,” Sherlock whispered, focus unsteady and face slack.

“Okay. You’re a liar. Hold on,” John muttered and untied Sherlock’s wrists, unattached the collar, and carefully pulled off the clamps, turning the vibrators off. Sherlock gasped loudly and bucked, wincing with a moan, and John held him tightly, then hauled him off the desk with a grunt and down into a chair. “Okay. Look at me. Sherlock. Sherlock, look at me.”

“I’m looking,” he slurred and tipped his head down, knocking his chin against his chest and slumping heavily to the floor. 

John caught him quickly under the arms and lifted him up, then delved mindlessly into Sherlock’s open trousers, taking off both the condom and the cock ring with careful fingers, “Okay. All right. Okay—Let’s get you to the bedroom, yeah?”

Sherlock shivered and smiled loosely, “Mm. Yes, John.”

“…Don’t say it in such a…suggestive way,” John laughed awkwardly as he wrapped his arms around Sherlock’s sweaty torso. “All right. Stand up for me—can you stand?”

“Nope,” Sherlock giggled, rubbing his face with a trembling hand and then trying to compose himself. “I feel…so lightheaded…”

John crouched to look into his face, “Yeah? I’ll get you some water then,” he mumbled, caressing Sherlock’s cheek and then kissing his forehead automatically. “And a cold compress because you are hot.”

Sherlock snorted and then covered his face, “I think you’ve damaged my brain…”

“The world is doomed,” John smiled and wandered off quickly, gathering a cold, damp cloth and a glass of water. “Okay. Here. Sip it slowly, okay? Slowly. Sherlock, move your hands away from your face.”

Sherlock blinked open his eyes and fumbled to take the glass, “I…can’t…”

John stifled his grin and cupped the back of Sherlock’s head, “All right, I’ll do it for you. Slowly,” he mumbled, glancing over at the bathroom to make sure that Irene was still out of the room before he helped Sherlock drink a few mouthfuls of water, draping the cloth over his shoulders and then gently slipping it down Sherlock’s back. “You okay?”

“Stop asking me that,” Sherlock grumbled, pushing John away and shaking. “…Help me up.”

John huffed but put the glass down and bent into Sherlock’s outstretched arms, hauling Sherlock to his feet with his arms around Sherlock’s torso again, “Maybe I should just pick you up properly…”

“You can’t pick me up,” Sherlock frowned as he pushed his face into John’s neck and held him close, scrambling at John’s shoulders and then knocking heads with him. 

“Right. I’m picking you up,” John said, unravelling Sherlock’s arms from him and then bending to throw Sherlock over his good shoulder, lifting him up. “Stop struggling!”

“You’re going to drop me! John! John, I’m slipping!”

“No you’re not—stop struggling!” John said through gritted teeth and carried Sherlock through to his bedroom, kicking the door closed behind him and setting Sherlock down on the bed. Sherlock hissed softly with a flutter of his eyelids and then looked up at John. “You okay? I can get you something for your back and—”

Sherlock shook his head and shoved John’s shoulder light-heartedly, “Quiet. I liked it. It’s fine. Everything is fine.”

“Yeah…not sure it is.” John muttered as he gazed down at him and followed the blush that still lingered across Sherlock’s bare chest. “I think we overstepped some line.”

Sherlock scoffed and waved a hand, almost batting John in the face, “Only got yourself to blame for that one.”

John nodded and rubbed the back of his neck, “Yeah…”

“At least you showed her whose boss, eh?” Sherlock joked with a curling smirk and looking far more wanton than he had beforehand as he reached down and tugged up his trousers in an oddly seductive roll of his hips. “Can I have that collar?”

John blinked at him a moment and then shifted his weight, frowning, “I’m sorry?”

“The clamps can come unattached, yes?” Sherlock said, holding out his hand impatiently. 

John stared at his hand, “You…what are you asking for here?”

“The collar,” Sherlock glared.

“Yes, but…but what does that mean?” John asked, glaring right back.

Sherlock sat up deliberately on the bed, pushing himself into John’s personal space, and smiled, suddenly predatory when John didn’t move back, “What do you think it means, John?”

John searched his dark gaze and licked his lips nervously when Sherlock reached out and began undoing John’s trousers, “I…um…what are you doing?”

“Really now,” Sherlock sighed in disapproval, dropping his hands in annoyance when John stepped back. “Don’t make me follow you. I’m still giddy.”

“Sherlock, I don’t think—”

“Please,” Sherlock whispered and shuffled closer to the edge, reaching for John’s trousers again, pulling him over. “Please, John. Let me…please?”

John clenched his jaw and fisted his hands, “Stop saying that…”

Sherlock rolled his eyes and pulled John’s fly open, tugging John’s erection out of his underwear with hot fingers and eyeing the hardened flushed skin, “Impressive!”

“Shit—wait, this is…” John muttered, fumbling to cover himself up, surprised at how quick he’d allowed Sherlock to touch him and at how hard he’d been in his trousers. “I’m—”

“Not gay, yes,” Sherlock nodded curtly, looking frustrated, and swatted John’s hands away as he sat up on the edge of the bed and leaned forward to push the head of John’s penis into his mouth. The wet heat of Sherlock’s tongue made John groan outright and he threw his head back with a shudder, gritting his teeth when Sherlock sucked him further into his mouth, wrapping his hand around the base gently.

“Sh-shit,” John gasped and looked down as Sherlock began a slow, gradual rhythm, peering up at John from his curled and sweaty fringe. “Oh God—don’t look at me.”

Sherlock arched his eyebrow in response but lowered his gaze, then shut his eyes altogether, taking more of John into his mouth with a moist breath and a hum. Sherlock was inexperienced and disordered, and John felt a clasp of guilt and apprehension in his gut, that he quickly shoved aside in exchange for the sight of Sherlock’s naked curved back, striped with red lines and flexing. Sherlock’s backside was still faintly visible from the bow of his loosened trousers, and John’s eyes locked onto the hand and fingerprints imprinted over the tensing curves of each buttock.

John let himself be taken by the sensations of Sherlock’s mouth on him, grinning dreamily and gripping a handful of curls he didn’t exactly remember reaching for. It took time, but slowly Sherlock became accustomed to John’s weight in his mouth and half down his throat, and learned each and every part to lick and suck that made John’s toes curl as heat poured down to pool at his pelvis in a tight coiling which signalled his building climax. Sherlock opened his eyes and looked at him again, and this time John couldn’t speak to tell him to stop.

They stared at each other as Sherlock became more confident and experienced with him, and John groaned and grit his teeth, squeezing another handful of curls in his hand and cupping the other hand against Sherlock’s open jaw. Sherlock’s eyelids fluttered in response and he hummed deeply around John’s erection, increasing the suction and concentrating on the head of John’s penis until John was growling out a warning and then suddenly pulsing thickly down Sherlock’s throat.

Sherlock coughed wetly at first, and then inhaled through his nose and swallowed, gazing up at John with wide pupils and flushed cheeks. When Sherlock moved away, it was because of John’s hand in his hair, and John winced and shuddered as his penis smeared along Sherlock’s bottom lip as it slid free. 

“Coventry,” Sherlock murmured in the silence as they panted together for several tension filled minutes. 

John blinked down at him and quickly tucked himself away with a blush, one hand on Sherlock’s face, “Wh-what?”

Sherlock glanced up at him, “What?”

“You…you just said “Coventry.” What’s Coventry got to do with anything?”

“It’s a story, probably not true. In the Second World War, the Allies knew that Coventry was going to get bombed because they’d broken the German code but they didn’t want the Germans to know that they’d broken the code, so they let it happen anyway,” Sherlock rumbled as he leaned back and licked his lips, falling back against the bed in a sedated and lazy sprawl.

John stared at him in confusion, trying not to think about what just happened, or about any of it, “…Okay? So…?”

Sherlock tilted his head at him, “Hm?”

John clenched his teeth and threw out his hand, “What does that have to do with anything?—Sherlock, we… I mean…God…we need to talk about what just happened…”

“Later. For now, get me the collar, I want it, and keep an eye on Irene whilst I recuperate,” Sherlock told him.

“Were…did you…did you go into your bloody Mind Palace while you were…while I…we…” John spluttered and glared heatedly with embarrassment when Sherlock peeked at him from under his lashes. 

“Yes and no,” Sherlock replied. 

John fisted his hands, “It can only be one or the other, Sherlock.”

“This whole experience cleared and then focused my mind. It was like I was restarted,” Sherlock tried to explain, waving a limp wristed hand. “I was fully concentrated on you, if that’s what you’re moaning about. However, the information, the idea, just…popped in my head in the moment we just spent breathing and not talking—I don’t rightly know where it came from, so I need to collect my thoughts. Leave me here. I’ll come and find you once I’ve worked through everything again. I was trying to do that before you and Irene pulled me into this game of yours.”

“It was not my plan to—”

“Yes, yes! It doesn’t matter. It’s done with now. I’m yours, not hers,” Sherlock told him as he rolled onto his side, purposely displaying the marks on his back.

John looked at them, “Damn right, you’re mine,” he mumbled under his breath, blinking in surprise at the words and then turning to leave the bedroom, slowly closing the door behind him. “Don’t take too long. Knowing you, you’ll be in here all night…”


	8. Changed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No sexyness/smut in this part, just a sort of re-write of the episode...with John talking to Irene instead of Sherlock. I was tempted to not write this but I really enjoyed writing John's responses and mixing up the dialogue from the episode into the scene, changing some of it slightly to fit the changed atmosphere and situation. Let me know if its any good.
> 
> More to come!

John stood outside Sherlock’s bedroom door for three full minutes before he moved, and he knocked briskly on the bathroom door as he passed it, “You can come out now. Get in the living room.”

When Irene trailed behind him slowly, John gestured for her to sit down as he made them both some tea. Irene sat slowly in Sherlock’s armchair and John tried not to let his frustration show, catching her long legs in the corner of his eyes as she crossed them. He eyed the crop with sudden intention but pushed the thought aside and gripped the handle of his mug instead.

The sitting room smelt of heat and sex, the desk still slightly damp from Sherlock’s sweat-slicked skin and John swallowed thickly, trying frantically not to think of the way Sherlock had sounded and looked and moved when he has writhed and arched, groaning for more of John’s hand against his skin. The image of Sherlock holding out his wrists submissively with a blush and a small smile flashed behind his eyes suddenly and John’s hand flew towards the kettle when it clicked.

“He’s not had anyone before, has he?” Irene asked in a knowing purr.

John turned and frowned at her, “Sorry?”

“And when I say “had,” I’m being indelicate.”

“I…don’t know. It’s none of my business, nor yours, for that matter,” John replied gruffly, forcing a not-so-pleasant smile on his face tightly and pausing when he began pouring the hot water into the mugs. “Milk? Sugar?”

Irene smiled wickedly at him with a twinkle in her eyes, “Yes. Both. A dab of milk and two tablespoons of sugar.”

““Dab of milk,”” John repeated with an amused huff, frowning inwardly at his manner.

“Mm. You really are quite possessive now, aren’t you?” Irene teased as she sat forward, resting her forearms over her crossed knees. “Your attitude toward me has changed dramatically.”

John tensed and pursed his mouth, trying to relax his shoulders, “Has it?” he asked mildly and turned to carry her tea over to her with a small smile. “Sorry. It’s not you…it’s…I don’t even know—this entire situation is…just not…”

“I get it,” Irene told him. “Like I told you before; you might say you two aren’t a couple, but you are. It’s obvious.”

“It’s really not,” John muttered, keeping his eyes down and the blush from his cheeks, his hand tight around his mug as he thought of Sherlock’s mouth wrapped around his erection and Sherlock’s eyes lidded and dark, pupils dilated. He flicked his gaze up and Irene tilted her head knowingly, one eyebrow quirking.

“I was going to ask him to…dinner, but, after that performance, perhaps I shan’t,” She laughed, the sound soft enough to relax John enough to laugh in reply.

“You really do like Sherlock, don’t you?” John asked and zeroed in on the way her pupils shifted and the pulse in her throat increased at the mention of his flatmates name. “Why did you make me—?”

Irene tittered and shook her head, “I didn’t make you do anything.”

“You said that I had to…make him beg or you would,” John pointed out tersely, resisting the urge to actually point at her as he did so.

“Did you really think that I could make you, or Sherlock for that matter, do anything you didn’t want to do?” 

John snapped his mouth closed and clenched his jaw, grinding his teeth before he spoke again, “We’re in for a bit of a wait…Sherlock will be…you know…um…a while. He’s thinking. Said something about Coventry or something.”

“I’ve never been. Is it nice?” Irene asked him sweetly. 

John narrowed his eyes at her slightly and shrugged, taking a sip of tea, pulling his lips back from the scorching liquid even as he swallowed a large mouthful without a flinch, “I don’t exactly trust you,” he murmured, answering her confused blink with a tight smile. “Just saying. We had a little fun at Sherlock’s expense before but… you hurt him. You…tricked him into thinking you were dead. Him. And then you…you mess with his head, have him bloody showing off to you. More than usual. And then basically have eye sex with him before you…you…made me do all of…that. You do know that you’ve messed with our friendship, don’t you?”

“Have I?”

“Yes!” John exclaimed and took another mouthful of tea, drumming his fingers on the armrest of his chair. “And how many bloody texts did you even send him? Went a bit overboard, didn’t you? Even Molly isn’t that desperate—And you’re sitting…in his chair. Do you know that? That’s his chair. He hates people sitting in his chair. Hates it. Passionately.”

Irene let her amusement show without care and ran her fingernails over Sherlock’s chair, “Does he.”

“He does,” John retorted, shifting his weight and taking yet another mouthful of tea, eyes on Irene’s nails. “…You think you’re clever, and you might be, but you’re not cleverer than, Sherlock. Just thought you should remember that. You’re not. You can’t trick him again.”

“What makes you think I want to trick him again? Though it was hardly a trick…”

“It was a trick. A dirty one. Pretending to be dead—didn’t you think about his feelings on the matter? Or how heartless it is to do something like that to someone?”

“I told you,” Irene said slowly. “It was for his own safety—”

“Bollocks.”

A tense stillness fell over both John and Irene, and John stared over at her for a couple of minutes before he lowered his gaze to his own knees. He tried to go over everything in his head, everything that had led up to that point, and lingered over what had transpired between Sherlock and him with an outward grimace. John hadn’t meant for it to get so out of hand, in fact, he hadn’t really meant the jokey way in which he’d countered Irene’s words to Sherlock to be taken so literally either. However, it had turned quickly into a game, and one that John, for some reason, had wanted to win. John could scarcely believe what he had done. He was confused and agitated and fidgety, and he deliberated when the overwhelming panic would engulf him. 

John wasn’t exactly sure how long they sat in silence for, but when he looked up again, it was night out and Irene was slumped lazily in Sherlock’s chair, her slender limbs draping over the armrests, empty mug clasped gently in one hand.

“Sherlock!” Mrs Hudson abruptly called up the stairs loudly, prompting Sherlock to stride fully dressed and looking as unruffled as always from his bedroom, with a small frown and a curve of one eyebrow as he watched Mrs Hudson climb the stairs and walk into the room with Plummer, the man whom had taken him to the Palace behind her. 

Mrs Hudson glanced around with a shift in her expression and eyed the cleared off desk and the black box as John scrambled to put things away. Sherlock’s mouth twitched and Irene bit down on her lip mischievously, throwing an amused look at John as he slammed the box closed a little too loudly.

“Sherlock, this man was at the door. Is the bell still not working?” Mrs Hudson asked before she turned to address the man, pointing to Sherlock. “He shot it.”

“Have you come to take me away again?” Sherlock asked snappily.

“Yes, Mr Holmes.”

Sherlock sneered snootily and glanced over at John and Irene, strolling over to swipe the box from behind John to take out the collar, unlatching the clamps with his eyes on John, “Well, I decline.”

Plummer took an envelope from his jacket and held it out to him, “I don’t think you do.”

Sherlock looked at it and thrust the box back into John’s hands, snatching up the envelope and opening it. He took out a Business Class boarding pass for Flyaway Airways in the name of Sherlock Holmes for flight number 007 to Baltimore, scheduled to leave at 18.30. Sherlock flicked his gaze to Irene and then tilted his head, tightening his lips as he tucked the pass into his jacket pocket and buckled on the collar with another look at her, grabbing for his coat, gesturing irritably for Plummer to go before him.

“Sherlock?” John asked and took a step forward, flushed and discomfited as Mrs Hudson frowned at the collar and took another look around the room. “Do you need me to…?”

“No,” Sherlock replied curtly and disappeared down the stairs without a backward glance. “Be back soon.”

John sighed audibly and turned to the window to watch as Sherlock got into the back of the car outside the flat, Plummer slipping into the passenger seat before the car drove away. Irene stood and watched them go silently, her expression changing distantly.


	9. I AM SHERLOCKED

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> John is epic. That is all.

John moved away from the window once the car was completely out of sight and bustled around the living room, cleaning up and packing away his box without looking at Irene once. On his way back down to the living room he paused and frowned, craning his head and just catching the back of Irene as she slipped down the stairs and out the front door silently. John narrowed his eyes and grabbing his coat, hurried over to the window as he slipped on his shoes. Irene was just getting into a car and he cursed and rushed outside just in time to see it driving off down the street.

“Shit,” John muttered and looked around idly, running a hand through his hair and slipping on his coat. “Okay. What to do…what to do…what would Sherlock do? Be Sherlock. Obviously.” John sighed and went back into the flat, pacing around the living room and then sighing, closing his eyes.

He tried to re-visualise everything and brought up the recent memory of Sherlock as he crossed the room and took the box from John, taking out the collar, then snatching up the envelope, opening it and taking out what John could vaguely remember. John frowned and screwed up his eyes, pressing at his temples. He just needed to recall what it said, what it was, if he could only just make out some word, any word, that would help him find out where Sherlock was.

“Come on, come on! He was standing right there, right next to me, how did I not see it!” John hissed to himself, and began to pace, rubbing his mouth and then the back of his neck, lifting his head and scrunching his eyes up even tighter. “It was paper…or…something like it. It was flat. Thick though. Sherlock looked at it and then tucked it into his jacket…what was it? What did it say? What could it possibly have been to get that reaction out of him? He left. So it was important. Important to the case, important to—”

John trailed off and opened his eyes, looking around and turning to stare at the desk that he’d pushed Sherlock down on, the desk he had been sitting at before when Sherlock asked him to do something. John grinned and scrambled for the laptop, opening it only to find it turned off. Did he turn it off, or did Irene? Turning it back on, John checked his history and slammed his hand down on the desk triumphantly.

“Bloody flight number! It was a ticket or something, something to do with the flight number, to do with a plane!—He’s at Heathrow Airport!” John exclaimed and sprinted from the flat, hailing down a cab with a thrum through his body. 

However, as he slipped into the backseat he realised he had no idea where in Heathrow Airport Sherlock would be, and cringed, thumping his knee in frustration. He checked his watch, tried to remember something, anything, but gave up with a snarl and growled out to the cab driver, checking his wallet quickly to make sure he was able to pay the fare.

The Airport wasn’t as busy as John had feared it would be, and he sighed in relief, threw money at the driver and leaped out into the pavement, rushing around in confusion and panic until he suddenly and miraculously caught sight of Irene out of the corner of his eye. He smirked and followed her, his stride powerful but slow and held back, slipping behind a group of businessmen as she glanced back with a faint frown. He huffed and noticed her outfit, checking his watch again. When had she been able to get dressed?

He shadowed her, hoping she didn’t know he was doing so, and tried to remember how Sherlock moved and looked around when he was doing the same. John held his breath as he passed by people and mirrored how Irene shifted through the small crowds. All to quickly John found that they were walking over to a 747 Jumbo Jet parked on the tarmac with Neilson, the American, standing at the bottom of the steps leading up to the open door. Irene took him out with an almost effortless jab to his solar plexus and John waited a moment and then jogged up, checking on him before backhanding him in the face for good measure.

“That’s for Mrs. Hudson,” He muttered darkly and ascended the steps quickly but quietly.

“—Don’t be absurd,” Sherlock was saying.

“Absurd? How quickly did you decipher that email for her? Was it the full minute, or were you really eager to impress?” Mycroft replied. 

Irene was standing behind Sherlock and John sneaked after her, slipping aside to hide, “I think it was less than five seconds,” she said and Sherlock turned to her.

“I drove you into her path,” Mycroft said regretfully before he paused a moment and lowered his eyes. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

“Mr Holmes, I think we need to talk.” Irene said as she walked forward towards them both.

“So do I. There are a number of aspects I’m still not quite clear on,” Sherlock told her when John peeked over at him with a small frown, noticing that Sherlock had flicked up his collar and had tied his scarf around his neck, hiding the collar beneath the dark fabric.

Irene walked passed Sherlock, “Not you, Junior. You’re done now,” she purred and continued down the aisle toward Mycroft as Sherlock turned and watched her, observing as she activated her phone and held it up to show his brother. “There’s more ... loads more. On this phone I’ve got secrets, pictures and scandals that could topple your whole world. You have no idea how much havoc I can cause and exactly one way to stop me – unless you want to tell your masters that your biggest security leak is your own little brother.”

John scoffed and rolled his eyes, then watched as Mycroft turned his head away, lowering his gaze, before he stepped out and strode forward, “She’s lying.”

All three of them jumped at his appearance and John straightened his shoulders and smiled, happy to have had surprised the most observed people he’d met. Sherlock arched his eyebrows at him, looking for a moment impressed and then overly eager, before the expression was gone and he glanced over at Irene with a tilt of his head. 

“I’m really not,” Irene told John, looking confident enough that John hesitated a moment, flicking his gaze towards the two Holmes brothers.

“We have people who can get into this,” Mycroft said after looking away from John.

Irene smiled widely, caressing and fondling the phone, “I tested that theory for you. I let Sherlock Holmes try it for six months,” she said and flicked her gaze at Sherlock who closed his eyes briefly with a grimace. “Sherlock, dear, tell him what you found when you X-rayed my camera phone.”

“There are four additional units wired inside the casing, I suspect containing acid or a small amount of explosive,” Sherlock replied flatly as Mycroft bowed his head. “Any attempt to open the casing will burn the hard drive.”

“Explosive,” Irene murmured, looking straight at Mycroft. “It’s more me.”

Mycroft lifted his head, “Some data is always recoverable.”

“Take that risk?” Irene asked with a coy and overconfident tip of her head.

“You have a passcode to open this. I deeply regret to say we have people who can extract it from you,” Mycroft carried on, changing tactic. 

Irene sighed and addressed Sherlock calmly without looking at him, “Sherlock?”

“There will be two passcodes: one to open the phone, one to burn the drive. Even under duress you can’t know which one she’s given you and there will be no point in a second attempt,” Sherlock intoned, his head faintly ducked as he spoke.

“He’s good, isn’t he? I should have him on a leash – in fact, I might,” Irene said and gazed intensely at Sherlock with a quirking mouth in John’s direction.

“Lead,” John corrected her childishly, ignoring the look Sherlock sent his way. “God, you really like him, don’t you? Even after…after everything that has happened, you still want him, don’t you? Even if you’ll never have him—It wouldn’t surprise me if the bloody passcode is Sherlock’s name.”

Mycroft frowned and then arched his eyebrow, looking at Sherlock who lifted his head, his eyes shifting back and forth in interest and sharpening in focus. John swallowed and then glanced at Irene who had stiffened very faintly, her smile faltering before it brightened forcefully.

In the next second several things happened in quick succession, Sherlock and Mycroft turned to grab at Irene’s arm and phone, and Irene ducked to escape them, slipping under their outstretched arms. She darted up and all but climbed over the bodies surrounding them, but John twitched into movement even before he knew he’d decided to do so. He cut her off easily and grabbed her, twisting her arm behind her back and knocking her legs out from under her, forcing her down on her knees with a wild and satisfied grin at her bowed head.

As Sherlock and Mycroft made their way toward him, John wrenched the phone from her fingers and looked at the security lock with its “I AM ---- LOCKED” screen. He frowned and then tossed the phone through the air, smirking when Sherlock caught it without so much as a fumble.

Sherlock stared at the screen for a long silent few moments and then strolled over to Irene’s bent figure, “Hm. When we first met, you told me that disguise is always a self-portrait. How true of you: the combination to your safe – your measurements; but this... this is far more intimate. This is your heart…” he said and looked down at her as he pressed the first of the four characters in with his thumb, grinning slightly as she turned her head up to him. “… And you should never let it rule your head. You could have chosen any random number and walked out of here today with everything you’ve worked for…”

John adjusted his grip as he felt Irene stiffen in panic under his hands when Sherlock pressed in the second character, his eyes still on her, “…but you just couldn’t resist it, could you?” he asked triumphantly as her breathing became heavier, his thumb pressing in the third character. “I’ve always assumed that love is a dangerous disadvantage…Thank you for the final proof.”

John couldn’t help the soft snort at Sherlock’s words and lifted his brow when Sherlock flitted his gaze up at him as he pressed the fourth character. Irene seized up and John shifted his weight, pulling her up to her feet gently, feeling a tad guilty at having pressed the woman into the cabin floor for so long.

“Everything I said: it’s not real,” She said to Sherlock softly. “I was just playing the game.”

Sherlock cocked his head arrogantly, “I know,” he whispered in reply. “And this is just losing.”

Leisurely, Sherlock turned the phone toward her, showing her and John the “I AM SHER LOCKED” on the phone screen, and then lifted it away, holding it out towards Mycroft without taking his eyes away from Irene.

“There you are, brother. I hope the contents make up for any inconvenience I may have caused you tonight.”

“I’m certain they will,” Mycroft said with a very faint but very happy smile as he took the phone and moved to leave the plane.

“If you’re feeling kind, lock her up; otherwise let her go. I doubt she’ll survive long without her protection,” Sherlock drawled, making John frown deeply.

“Are you expecting me to beg?” Irene asked in dread, her entire body stiff and shaking under John’s loosening grasp.

Sherlock’s mouth quirked and he turned his back to her slowly, “Yes,” he replied curtly and took a few steps toward the exit of the plane after his brother.

“…Please… Mercy,” she mumbled in anguish before John could find it in himself to object. The words did nothing to make Sherlock face her again and Irene shuddered, slumping forward when John released her. “You’re right. I won’t even last six months.”

Sherlock turned to her, looking dismissive, and John scowled, “Can’t we do anything?” he asked Sherlock abruptly, making Irene flinch and look back at him. “We can’t just let her—”

“Nothing to be done, I’m afraid. Come along, Mycroft will deal with her,” Sherlock muttered and waited for John to gently push Irene from her horrified stupor, before leading them from the plane without a backward glance.

John sighed and dropped his hand to her shoulder, feeling all kinds of guilty as he escorted her away. John didn’t particularly like the woman as such but he didn’t wish to send her to her death. He tried to think of a why out of it as he walked her to the black car that Mycroft was standing beside, his head tilted and his mouth curled into a condescending sort of smile.

“John,” Sherlock called behind him and John turned to see Sherlock gesturing for him to follow him as he walked away, obviously not wanting a lift from his brother.

John let Irene go with a compassionate expression edged in pity, and checked his wallet again with a loud exhale, jogging over to Sherlock’s side.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes...more dialogue from the episode. I'm not entirely sorry about reusing them.


	10. Benefits

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This might be a teasing chapter...
> 
> Let me know if you want more!
> 
> I may end it where the actual episode ends...or I might extend it a bit more, to show the progression into their new "relationship," it all depends on you lovely people.

“Are you sure there’s nothing we can do?” John asked for what must have been the twentieth time since they’d both returned to Baker Street. He trudged up the stairs after Sherlock and watched as Sherlock shrugged disinterestedly in reply and tugged off his coat, unwinding his scarf. “We can’t just leave her to—Look, who knows what might happen. Can Mycroft not insure her safety? Can’t he make sure that she’s not tracked down, at least?”

“Why do you care so much?” Sherlock said coldly and turned to face him, the collar still fixed to his throat. 

“It’s…just…not right,” John replied, unable to keep his gaze from how the leather hugged Sherlock’s pale skin. He grimaced at a spark of arousal from the sight and span around roughly, wrenching off his coat. “Forget it.”

Sherlock regarded him silently and trailed behind John as he wandered into the kitchen, automatically filling the kettle, “How did you find me?”

John frowned and tapped the counter agitatedly, “What?”

“Ah…you followed, Miss Adler. Without being caught too. Very impressive,” Sherlock murmured, and the deep husky tone to his voice made John go rigid with a flush of heat. “And you gave Neilson a nice smacking as well, very nice—”

“That wasn’t all me,” John cut in lowly and glanced over his shoulder at Sherlock, who smiled at him and stepped closer. “It was a bloody good thing I did find you, who knows if you would have figured out that damn password...” 

“You hardly figured it out, yourself,” Sherlock scoffed and stepped closer still, his body only just brushing John’s. “Although, it was highly…arousing—”

“Stop,” John interjected and moved around to face Sherlock properly. “Listen…about…um, about what happened—God, I, I don’t know where to begin with this…”

“If you start off by saying “I’m not gay,” I may punch you,” Sherlock told him and folded his hands behind his back gently, arching his eyebrow and tucking in his chin with an expectant tensing of his mouth.

John bit back the sudden, defensive need to repeat those very words, and clenched his teeth, jutting out his jaw and pursing his lips, “All right…” he muttered, turning when the kettle clicked, but pausing as Sherlock grabbed his arm. John looked up at Sherlock’s face and then at his fingers wrapped around his bicep, basking in the secure grip and the warmth seeping through his sleeve. “I don’t know what you want, Sherlock? This wasn’t meant to happen. It was…it was just a stupid…stupid…thing—I never meant for it to go the way it did and now, honestly, I’m not…I don’t know what to do.”

Sherlock nodded minutely and stroked his hand down John’s arm, gathering up his hand and lifting it to push into the side of the collar. John licked his lips with a frown and curled his fingers around the cushioned leather. It was warm from Sherlock’s skin, and John swallowed as he traced the edge of it round to the front, tugging on the silver ring idly. Sherlock exhaled an audible breath and bent down a little, gazing at John from his hooded eyes before he pulled away and grinned.

“…How long are you going to wear that for?” John asked once he’d cleared his throat and turned back around to the kettle, making them both teas with steady hands.

“I shan’t wear it all the time, if that’s what you’re actually asking,” Sherlock drawled and moved to sit on the settee with a sigh, taking out his phone to lazily swipe his fingers over it in a somewhat suggestive motion that only served to make the back of John’s neck hot. 

John averted his eyes and stared down into the mugs as he added sugar to one of them, “You didn’t answer my question.”

“Hm?”

“What do you want? I mean, what is this?” John asked, turning and walking over to Sherlock with his heart in his throat and his stomach twisting with panic. He pushed everything as far back as he could and straightened his spine, lifting his chin and holding out Sherlock’s mug.

“That’s two questions,” Sherlock murmured as he glanced up and then gestured to the settee with a tip of his head. “Sit.”

John inhaled through his nose in aggravation but sat down beside him, putting the mugs down nearby, “Are you going to answer?”

“I don’t really want anything,” Sherlock told him as he put down his mobile and looked at John intently, lifting a hand in annoyance when John opened his mouth to retort, already pointing to the collar adorning Sherlock’s neck. “Fine. Let me rephrase—I want what I’ve always wanted. This little… stint has not changed how I regard you, or what I ultimately want out of my life with you. Granted, there has been a shift, obviously, but that hasn’t exactly tainted anything. There has always been something between us, whether you want to admit to it or not, there has been something. Respect. Loyalty. Kinship. Affection. Call it whatever you want. In a way, you own me as much as I own you. We are partners. I feel…almost incomplete without you-- Ignoring the sexual aspect, this collar represents our bond, it anchors me to you, and…I like it.”

John blinked, frowned, looked away and stared into the middle distance for a moment, “So…you want things to go back to normal? You think that’s possible, after everything? And with you wearing that…collar about the place?”

“Our life was never normal, John, so it can hardly go back to what it never was to begin with,” Sherlock rectified with a roll of his eyes.

“…Sherlock…I whipped you and…k-kissed you, and then you…you…” John gestured awkwardly and sat back, covering his face with one of his hands briefly and then scratching the underside of his jaw with a nervous jerk. “That wasn’t part of our everyday life before…God, why did I allow Irene to make me do those things? I just…it was all meant to be a joke. I was trying to…I don’t know, do something to the sexual tension that was filling the entire bloody room. It was so thick that I could hardly breathe! You two were just making eyes at each other, and she talked to you like she knew something you didn’t, that she could make you do something so unlike you. Make you…beg. And it just…rubbed me the wrong way…for some reason…”

Sherlock looked away, but not before John caught a curling amused grin spread across his face, “You have several options—”

“Just me?”

“Yes. I’m fine with what happened. I was surprised at first, but…” Sherlock trailed off and flipped his wrist vaguely.

John turned to face Sherlock as much as he could and narrowed his eyes, “But you…you don’t do this!”

Sherlock blinked at him slowly, as if John was being deliberately dim, “Do what, exactly?”

“You know what! Sexual…stuff. You’ve shown no interest whatsoever in relationships or sex or…anything of that nature—but then you…you let Irene…and me do all of… that, and you enjoyed it, yeah? Well, I mean, I know you did but…but I didn’t know you were—”

“I’m pansexual,” Sherlock interrupted and smiled in the silence that followed, lounging back and stretching his legs out, before he reached for his tea. “And perhaps you are more bi-curious…that or heteroflexible. Either or.”

John spluttered and watched Sherlock drink before he spoke, “Pansexual?”

“Yes,” Sherlock nodded with a sigh.

“But…but you said that…you said girlfriends weren’t your area and…didn’t really answer the boyfriend question, but, but still…” John stuttered, rubbing his brow. “I thought you were…I don’t know, asexual or…possibly gay, but I obviously couldn’t be sure, because you showed no sign at all in anything but…brain…stuff.”

Sherlock snorted in hilarity and wrinkled his nose at John’s words, taking another sip of tea, “Girlfriends aren’t my area, neither are boyfriends, nor any other sort of romantic relationships in general. But I’m not talking about relationships. I’m merely answering the question you’re obviously going to ask me about my sexuality—I still suffer with sexual arousal and attraction, but I care not for their sex or gender identity. It’s irrelevant to me. I often am attracted to more than just looks.”

John huffed, “Seemed like you were attracted to nothing but crime…”

Sherlock scowled but continued speaking as if John hadn’t spoken, “And though I do indeed have what some would call a low interest in sexual activity, I am not asexual. Sometimes I wish I were. It would make things so much easier to deal with...”

“So… if you’re not…interested in…?”

“Sex is sex,” Sherlock stated, enjoying John’s blush and leaning toward him. “To answer another question you are evidently unable to voice; yes, I’d quite like to do what we did again. I liked it. You liked it. I realise this is stupidly difficult for you, but as I said before, you are probably more bi-curious than strictly heterosexual, and in a way, I’ve always had an inkling about that—We don’t have to be in a romantic relationship. We don’t have to being each other’s “boyfriends.” If we were to…insert anything new into our friendship, it would be in the form of an S&M sort of liaison. If you’re amenable, of course.”

John licked his lips and couldn’t stop himself from looking down at the collar, “S&M,” he repeated.

“Yes,” Sherlock said in annoyance. “Possibly B&D as well—Better make it BDSM. That gives more freedom to do and try different things.”

John shook his head, scrubbed two hands over his face, and looked at Sherlock seriously, “So, essentially, what you’re saying is that you want to be friends with “benefits”?”

“If by “benefits” you mean you whipping me every so often, then yes,” Sherlock grinned and flicked the silver ring on the collar with one of his fingers.

“I’m not—”

“Don’t you dare say it,” Sherlock talked over him with a disapproving look before he suddenly swooped down and pushed their mouths together. 

The kiss was quick and only a brush of skin, but John tensed and twitched back, looking into Sherlock’s eyes, “…Something like this could ruin our friendship, Sherlock.”

“I don’t see how,” Sherlock replied and reached out to touch John’s jaw, leaning back in to kiss John again, running his mouth along John’s until John suddenly exhaled in a gush of air and cupped a hand at Sherlock’s nape, curling his fingers around the collar, pulling him until Sherlock had to fumble to put down his mug, spilling half the tea onto the floor in his haste.

John clenched his jaw and smoothed his hand round to grip the ring, wrenching it roughly to arch Sherlock’s head back, “You really don’t see how our friendship could be ruined by this?” he asked as Sherlock’s cheeks flushed and he scrambled to obediently arc his throat. 

“No,” Sherlock breathed and then cleared his throat. “No. I don’t. I trust that our friendship is strong enough to not be affected by—”

“What if I don’t want what you’re…offering?”

Sherlock’s mouth quirked and he swallowed slowly enough for John to notice and follow the bob of his Adam’s apple, “You do.”

John looked away but urged Sherlock closer by the collar ring until he nuzzled John’s chin and jaw, pressing into John’s body. He was overly warm, and his heartbeat was strong and fast when he pushed his chest into John’s own, trying to climb onto his lap without tugging on the grip John had on the ring. John leaned back to give Sherlock more room, and curled his other hand around his hip once he was finally situated, the weight of Sherlock somehow extremely comforting in a way that surprised John more than his sudden acceptance to what Sherlock had proposed.

Sherlock nosed at his hair, “Tomorrow?”

“I…don’t know. You really should rest your…um, your back and that, for a bit.” John mumbled, turning his head to peer at Sherlock’s face from the corner of his eyes.

“…All right,” Sherlock whispered sullenly. “If I must.”

John laughed gently and nodded, “You must.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> P.S. I love how John fights and stutters and tries to sort things out, panicking about his sexuality and about Sherlock, and their friendship, but when Sherlock is close and is so...Sherlock, he just suddenly relaxes into things and lets them happen. He wants it. He knows he does. He knows.
> 
> Feedback fuels me!


	11. The Woman

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess what will be in the next chapter?
> 
> I had to re-write this scene from the episode but with the pace of this story and with the added stuff. Enjoy!

John hurried forward, almost soaked to the bone from the pouring rain, and paused with a frown of surprise at noticing Mycroft standing under his umbrella, smoking. John glanced up at the flat briefly and then wandered over to Mycroft with a furrow of his brows and a tilt of his head, ignoring the way the rain slipped coldly down his neck to drench the collar of his coat and his clothes beneath. He couldn’t remember ever seeing Mycroft smoke before and the sight made him instantly think of Sherlock and the reasons behind his sporadic smoking habit, which only deepened the furrows in his brow.

“You don’t smoke,” John stated as he caught Mycroft’s eye and forced a tight smile. 

Mycroft exhaled a cloud and returned the smile, “I also don’t frequent cafés,” he replied and dropped his cigarette to the ground, treading on it. John pursed his lips in annoyance but said nothing and watch as Mycroft closed his umbrella, picked up a briefcase that was at his side, and walked into Speedy’s. John sighed and looked back up at the flat before he followed him inside, picking his way through to sit down with Mycroft at an empty table, happy to at least be out of the rain.

Mycroft ordered John a drink with an elegant flick of his wrist and then waited until John had it before he took out a plastic wallet and pushed it across the table, watching John as John looked down at it and took a slow sip from his mug. There was a stick upon the wallet and John arched his eyebrow as he read the words “RESTRICTED ACCESS – CONFIDENTIAL” across it. The familiar camera phone belonging to Irene was tucked inside the wallet, atop a collection of documents.

“Okay,” John started with a sigh. “This the file on Irene Adler, I presume?”

“Closed forever. I am about to go and inform my brother – or, if you prefer, you are – that she somehow got herself into a witness protection scheme in America. New name, new identity. She will survive and thrive, but he will never see her again.” 

John inclined his head with a soft snort, “Why would he care? He despised her at the end. Won’t even mention her by name, just “the Woman.””

Mycroft’s brow twitched, “Is that loathing, or a salute? One of a kind; the one woman who matters.”

“No,” John uttered briskly, so sudden and curt and loud that Mycroft’s eyelids fluttered in momentary surprise. “No. He’s not like that. He doesn’t feel things that way…not about her. I don’t think…no. No.”

“My brother has the brain of a scientist or a philosopher, yet he elects to be a detective. What might we deduce about his heart?” Mycroft murmured softly.

“I don’t know.” John frowned with a loose shrug.

“Neither do I…but initially he wanted to be a pirate,” he said smiling briefly at John before his gaze became distant and thoughtful.

“He’ll be okay with this witness protection, never seeing her again. He’ll be fine,” John said as he adjusted his position in his chair and took another sip of his drink, watching Mycroft’s gaze sharpen again as he looked at John.

“I agree,” Mycroft muttered and inhaled sharply, straightening his spine languidly. “That’s why I decided to tell him that.”

John squinted in confusion and abrupt suspicion, “Instead of what?”

“She’s dead,” Mycroft said bluntly. “She was captured by a terrorist cell in Karachi two months ago and beheaded.”

John stared at him for a thick bout of tensed silence and then cleared his throat quietly, “It’s definitely her? She’s done this before.”

“I was thorough this time. It would take Sherlock Holmes to fool me, and I don’t think he was on hand, do you?” Mycroft asked in a way that was probing and a flat statement at the same time; and after staring at John for a moment he pushed the wallet further across the table toward him, clasped his hands in front of him, rested his chin on them, and regarded John. “So…what should we tell Sherlock?”

John looked down at the wallet and thought back as he hid his expression from Mycroft with his mug, pretending to take a rather large mouthful. Sherlock and he weren’t joined at the hip, but Sherlock had been uncharacteristically clinging the few days after the incident with Irene, always wearing the collar and making offhanded comments that made John vividly remember the way Sherlock had bucked and arched and groaned against the desk. John clenched his eyes shut briefly to rid himself of another mental image. They hadn’t done anymore since then, not since Sherlock had draped himself over John’s lap in the living room, and John had often wondered if Sherlock was waiting for John to make a move or if he had actually forgotten or found he no longer wanted what he had suggested. Though, why would he wear the collar on a daily basis? Whenever John had seen him since, it was always in the collar. Did he ever take it off? 

Pushing aside all thought of the collar wrapped snugly around Sherlock’s pale and flexing throat, he tried to recall what Sherlock had been up to two months earlier and frowned, putting down the mug to lick his lips and avidly avoid Mycroft’s interested gaze.

“I’ll…go tell him then,” He muttered with a sigh just as Mycroft’s phone rang. Mycroft gave him a small but emotionless smile, and stood up, wandering away to take the call. John regarded him for a few passing seconds and then took the wallet without another word, pushing up out of his chair and walking to dash back through the rain to step into the flat, shutting the door quickly behind him. John eyed the wallet and pursed his lips, then glared at the floor, wiping his wet shoes on the mat roughly.

Looking at the stairs, John adjusted his hold on the wallet and made his way up, rolling his eyes when Sherlock’s voice drifted out from the kitchen before he’d even managed to make it to the top step.

“Clearly you’ve got news,” Sherlock rumbled from his place sitting at the kitchen table, looking into his microscope, the collar in place. John paused in the doorway and stared over at him, eyeing him up and then gazing at the pale sliver skin of his neck, which was just visible above the black band of leather. “If it’s about the Leeds triple murder, it was the gardener. Nobody noticed the earring.”

“Um. No. No, it’s…” John walked a few steps toward him, glancing around the kitchen briefly. “…it’s about Irene Adler—where were you two months ago?”

Sherlock looked up at him, face indecipherable, “Oh? Something happened? Has she come back?”

“Where were you two months ago, Sherlock?” John reiterated as Sherlock got slowly to his feet and walked around the table toward him. John stared at him and pointedly adjusted the wallet under his arm. “Do you think I’m stupid?”

Sherlock blinked and then lifted his brow with a teasing twist of his mouth, “Well—”

“I thought you didn’t care what happened to her?” John frowned, tilting his head when Sherlock took a step closer. “I mean, not that I’m not pleased that you didn’t let her, you know, but for God sake, Sherlock! You could have at least told me. Clued me in a little. You could have been hurt! You were—”

“What are you talking about?” Sherlock asked with a crease between his brows.

John looped the fingers of his free hand into the ring at the front of the collar before he knew it, and dragged Sherlock down, “Like I said,” he muttered and held up the wallet. “Do you think I’m stupid?”

Sherlock swallowed and then flitted his suddenly dilated eyes over to it, “Is that her file?”

“Yes,” John sighed and hefted it, offering it to him. “Do you want to…?”

“No.” Sherlock said curtly, though he glanced back at John after a moment of silence and held out his hand, palm upturned and fingers lazily curled. “I will have her camera phone though.”

“There’s nothing on it anymore. It’s been stripped,” John told him and tugged him closer instinctively until Sherlock’s fringe brushed against his forehead and his breath gushed hot and fast down the lower part of John’s face. 

“I know, but I…” Sherlock paused a second and his eyes flickered between John’s own. “…I’ll still have it.”

John looked at the phone in the wallet briefly, “Why? A keepsake?” he asked and then shook his head, relishing in the sensation of Sherlock’s hair against his skin. “I’ve gotta give this back to, Mycroft. You can’t keep it. It’s basically the government’s now. I couldn’t even give—You really did go and save her, didn’t you? …Didn’t you?”

“Please,” Sherlock murmured and very slightly flexed his fingers, extending his hand a little further as John exhaled and let go of the collar to take out the phone, pressing it gently into Sherlock’s hand, watching the way his fingers closed around it. Sherlock then drew back his hand and slipped the phone into his trouser pocket. “Thank you.”

“Where were you, Sherlock? Two months ago. Tell me,” John said and watched Sherlock’s face closely before he scoffed and pushed Sherlock back a little, pointing at him. “I know you did it. I’m not blind. I know you liked her—”

“I didn’t like—”

“Yes! Yes, you did. And that’s…that’s okay. You liked her because she’s smart and she, for a time, outsmarted you and…she is easy on the eyes and…you did have this sort of “kindred spirit” bloody thing going on…” John trailed off from his rambling with a huff, lifting the wallet awkwardly. “I’d better take this back.”

Sherlock inclined his head, “Yes.”

John squinted at him with consideration, “…Yes?”

“Yes.”

John nodded with a faint smile, “I thought so. Right. Yeah,” he breathed and turned to walk out, before he dwelled and then turned back around to look at Sherlock. “Go and wait in your bedroom.”

Sherlock blinked and a blush crept up his cheeks before John’s eyes, “What?”

“You lied to me. Went sneaking off behind my back,” John said and though his stomach flipped in a mixture of panic and apprehension, John couldn’t deny all that he’d felt and enjoyed when he’d been all but showing off to Irene in the space of their living room. Couldn’t deny the way he’d felt at seeing Sherlock writhing and gasping and pinked on desk; couldn’t deny the way he’d enjoyed the feel of Sherlock’s mouth around his erection, and couldn’t deny the way Sherlock looked in the collar and what it did to him. “Go and wait in your room.”

Sherlock’s mouth twitched before he turned and slowly walked in the direction of his room, his eyes dark and face flushed. John watched him go and swallowed thickly, then walked back down the stairs, meeting Mycroft outside again to hand over the wallet mutely with a tight smile. Mycroft frowned at him and then arched his eyebrow, flicking his gaze to the wallet meaningfully. John arched his own eyebrow in reply and Mycroft narrowed his eyes, glanced up at the flat, looked back down at John, and then nodded to him and slipped into a black car that just so happened to pull up beside him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> John is such a sexy smart man


	12. For Mercy

John waited until the car drove away and then returned to the flat, striding purposely to his bedroom and pulling out his black box again with a shaky breath. Shrugging out of his damp coat on his way back down to Sherlock’s bedroom, John lingered in the kitchen a moment, scratching the back of his neck and debating his actions. The box in his hand was weighty, filled with everything instead of specific things, like it had been on the day of Irene’s challenge. John looked down at it, licked his lips, shifted his weight and then straightened his spine and continued on in a stalk, pushing open Sherlock’s bedroom door fluidly. 

Sherlock was lying on his stomach on his bed, his torso bared and his head turned aside, arms at his sides. He jolted at John’s entrance, the muscles in his back flexing, and looked over at John silently, the blush on his cheeks blotchier than it had been before. John closed the door behind him with a click and strolled over to put the box down on Sherlock’s beside table, feeling a flare of heat at the way Sherlock tracked the movement and licked his lips.

“Move to the centre of the bed,” John ordered gruffly, clearing his throat when Sherlock’s mouth curled up, and then motioned to the lower part of Sherlock as he shifted into position. “And take those off.” 

Sherlock froze and glanced down, opening his mouth to speak before he gradually lifted his hips and reached down to unbuckle and undo his trousers, pushing them down his thighs and over his knees, kicking them off the rest of the way. John motioned pointedly at Sherlock’s underwear with his chin, and lifted his eyebrows in challenge when Sherlock hesitated, then took Sherlock’s trousers away and neatly folded them, ignoring the weight of Irene’s phone in Sherlock’s pocket as he put them aside, rolling up his sleeves. 

Sherlock inhaled deeply, silently, held it, and then let it out as he grasped the dark waistband of his underwear and pushed it down slowly, the muscles in his backside twitching when Sherlock’s erection tautly arced free to hit the bedding and the toned stretch of his stomach with a soft thump that was almost lost amongst the rustling of fabric as Sherlock worked the underwear down his legs. John took a breath and moved forward suddenly, jerking them the rest of the way down, putting them away.

Sherlock’s backside was pale and tensed, and John couldn’t help but gaze at it as he stepped close to the edge of the bed, “Arms up,” he said curtly.

Adjusting his hips against the bed, Sherlock brought both arms up, extending them above his head in a languid stretch, and watched John with anticipation when John turned to open his box and pulled out leather-bound handcuffs. John blushed and pressed his mouth together in faint embarrassment and apprehension, and then turned and reached over the bed to secure them on Sherlock’s wrists. When John leaned back away, he smoothed his hand down Sherlock’s naked back, surprised at the heat coming off Sherlock’s skin.

John went back to pull out the ball gag and Sherlock frowned and lifted his head, “No safeword?” he asked, voice incredibly husky and a few octaves lower.

“You can pick one. Anything you want,” John said, looking at Sherlock as he dangled the gag from his fingers. “Actually, if you…prefer, you can choose one that we could always use.”

“Always?” Sherlock repeated with a quirk of one brow.

John took several quiet breaths and then nodded, “Always.”

“How am I meant to say this safeword if I’m gagged?”

“Well,” John mumbled as he leaned down slightly to look Sherlock in the eyes, moving one hand to slide into Sherlock’s soft curls. “We could still, theoretically, have a safeword. It…just won’t be a word. More like a noise, you could grunt a number of times in a row, or hum a tune. Or, I can give you something to hold on to, so when you’re in distress or want to stop, you can use the object to tell me.”

Sherlock’s eyes flitted back and forth between John’s face and the gag rapidly as he worked his throat and pressed his lips together briefly, “All right. I’ll hum a tune.”

“What’s that then? You need to let me know.”

Sherlock smirked deliberately, playfully, and locked eyes with him, ““Mercy” by Duffy.” 

John stared at him for a long, silent few moments, and then snorted and laughed, pressing closer in amusement, “You…how do you even know that song?” he giggled as Sherlock grinned at him and shrugged. “Okay…all right. I’ll, um, I’ll keep a listen out for that then.”

Sherlock hummed with amusement and then relaxed his facial expression, shivering when John kneeled on the bed to move the gag into place. John nudged the ball against Sherlock’s plush mouth and smirked when Sherlock timidly parted his lips and frowned when John eased the ball gag between his teeth and attached it firmly around Sherlock’s head.

Sherlock breathed through his nose and glanced at his handcuffed wrists as John smoothed his fingers along the gag and stroked Sherlock’s cheek, “Can you breathe okay? Your nose isn’t blocked or anything, right?” he asked in a murmur, waiting for Sherlock to shake his head in answer, before he then slowly bent down to push his forehead and nose into the side of Sherlock’s head. “…I’m going to blindfold you too…”

At the sudden look Sherlock shot him, John grinned sheepishly and reached back to the box to pull the blindfold out, letting Sherlock look it over before he covered his fluttering eyes with it and tied it confidently around his head, making sure not to knot it in his thick curls. Standing back, John admired the stretch of Sherlock’s body and then cleared his throat, leaving the room quickly to gather up some towels from the bathroom. When he returned, Sherlock was arched up onto his elbows in confusion, the slope of his spine drawing John’s attention almost immediately. 

“Don’t worry,” John muttered and walked over to tap the curve of Sherlock’s backside. “Lift your hips a moment, would you?”

Sherlock’s eyebrows worked under the blindfold and he grunted softly through the gag, but he did as instructed and slid up to his knees, exposing his erection and bringing his cuffed hands to his chest, motioning with an impatient flutter of his fingers. John huffed and glared half-heartedly at him, trying not to stare too much at the way Sherlock’s thighs were bunched with muscle. Draping one towel where Sherlock’s hips would rest and another at where Sherlock’s head would be positioned, John then touched Sherlock’s naked body and guided him back towards the bed.

John watched Sherlock’s erection press into the towel gently as he lay down, and pushed his palm up Sherlock’s back, “Depending on how long this will be…I may stop it to give you something to eat or drink, all right?” 

Sherlock replied with an annoyed sound in the back of his throat and arranged his arms up above his head again, idly touching the headboard with seeking fingers and getting used to being without his sight. John stroked over Sherlock’s skin over and over again, entranced with the way his hand moved, with the way Sherlock felt beneath his touch; but even with the confident swipes, John still felt the buzz of nervousness at what he was doing. 

He still didn’t understand what they were. He and Sherlock were different since Irene Adler, which was blatantly obvious. Not only did it seem like Sherlock continuously wore the collar, but Sherlock looked at John differently, touched him differently, and the small smiles that he often held only for John in the privacy of their own flat were also different, were languid and suggestive whenever John stared at them for too long. John didn’t want to ruin the friendship that they had, while at the same time he wanted nothing more than to have Sherlock struggling taut and shaking under his touch. It was confusing and addicting and overwhelming satisfying, and John was faintly lost because of it.

Sherlock huffed through his nose and squirmed under John’s hand, and John blinked, stepping back from the bed a moment, “You know,” he idly started conversationally. “I hardly did this sort of…stuff…before …you know, before…what we did with Irene watching. I had a few girlfriends into it but…not a lot…”

Turning his head over his shoulder at John, Sherlock frowned under the blindfold and John grinned and brought his hand suddenly and roughly down on Sherlock’s upturned bottom. Sherlock jerked with a garbled shout and trembled, scrambling at the pillows with his cuffed hands and breathing hard through his nose, already drooling a little from the gag from one hit. 

“This won’t be like before though,” John said, and he was amazed at how rough his voice sounded as he moved close to eye the pinking skin of Sherlock’s buttocks. “I won’t lead with the crop—don’t want that thing at all, actually. You okay with that?”

Sherlock nodded a little too vigorously and shifted his position, lifting his hips in invitation, and John wondered again, dazedly, how they had got to where they were. He waited until Sherlock thought the strike wasn’t coming, until Sherlock relaxed and turned his head again in frustration, and then slapped his palm down on Sherlock’s lower back, thrumming with a surge of arousal when Sherlock groaned around the gag and bucked.

John’s palm thudded down against Sherlock’s skin repeatedly, colouring almost the entire length of his back and the curve of his backside pink. Breathing hard, John mindlessly climbed up onto the bed and straddled Sherlock’s quivering hips, leaning over him to thread his fingers through Sherlock’s hair and tug his head aside, exposing the arch of the flushed throat under Sherlock’s jaw. 

Sherlock was drooling messily, dampening the towel below his chin, and John mopped at his wet and stretched lips as he pressed his nose into the sweaty curls plastered to Sherlock’s temple.

“Are you okay?” He whispered, adjusting when Sherlock pushed up onto his elbows slowly and nodded with a wheezing moan. John checked his pulse and temperature, and then tipped Sherlock’s chin up gently, exhaling down his stretched neck passed the collar. Sherlock whined thick and low in his throat, and turned to nudge his head against John eagerly.

“Did she…touch you?” John asked suddenly, eyes narrowing on the way Sherlock stilled and huffed through his nose. “I mean, did she try anything? She did like you, you know. A lot. For God sake, her password was your name!”

Sherlock’s head tipped in such a way that John didn’t have to see Sherlock’s eyes to know they were rolling in aggravation. John scowled and reached back to slap Sherlock’s tailbone sharply and rocked with the sudden rut of Sherlock’s pelvis, mashing his mouth to the crook of Sherlock’s neck, bumping the collar out of the way to bite down with something like a growl.

With a muffled gurgle, Sherlock squirmed beneath him and trembled, and John bit down a littler harder, slipping his hands around Sherlock’s torso to palm and caress his puckered nipples. Moaning with a scrambling of his legs, Sherlock lifted himself up further on shaking arms and John unconsciously pushed his hands lower to stroke over Sherlock’s heaving ribs and tensing stomach. He pulled up and away when his fingers touched the hot, slick crease of Sherlock’s thighs, and he swallowed roughly, hovering over Sherlock’s marked back.

The bite he’d left was glistening wet and dark, and John blushed at the sight of it, even as a loop of desire tightened in his gut. He tried to speak but he only grunted instead and listened to Sherlock panting wildly through his nose, drooling again from around the gag. Sherlock’s body was hot and John shifted, glancing over at the box on Sherlock’s bedside table.


	13. Honey

When John looked back at Sherlock beneath him, Sherlock was breathing better and shifting with impatience and expectancy, “Sherlock,” John began, shocked at how deep his voice was getting, “Sherlock…I…um, I’m not exactly a professional when it comes to—I mean, I like all this…stuff, obviously, but I don’t have…I don’t do it often. I don’t know if you’re expecting something…um…”

Sherlock turned his head slightly and grunted loud in frustration, any word he tried to say garbled and muffled by the gag, and John felt his mouth quirk as he reached back to slap Sherlock’s backside. Sherlock moaned and rocked into the bed in response, and John smacked him twice more, before stretching to sharply whip the backs of Sherlock’s thighs with his fingers. The resulting wail and writhing struggle jostled John aside and he fell to the bed with a huff of husky laughter, shifting to instinctively thrust his hand between the bed and Sherlock’s quivering pelvis to cup the wet rigid length of Sherlock’s erection, feeling how much of the towel had been soaked with pre-ejaculate with the back of his knuckles.

“Should we use the, um…cock ring again?” John asked, watching Sherlock wheeze through his nose and grind across John’s palm so lustfully that John’s focus blurred in arousal. With a shaky exhale; John tugged awkwardly on Sherlock’s penis in the cramped, heated space, and sat up when Sherlock lifted onto his knees, keeping his shoulders pressed to the bedding. “Wait there…”

Sherlock tried to protest and jerked in irritation, scrabbling at the pillows and turning his head to blindly follow John, who slipped from the bed and walked to the box. John reached over to quieten Sherlock with a hand to Sherlock’s shoulders and then pursed his lips and unbuckled the gag with a sigh, pulling it away. Sherlock worked his jaw and swallowed, and John gaped somewhat fervently at his red and wet lips with a low grunt.

“What are you doing?” Sherlock complained, breathless and squirming. “Why did you take the gag off? You basically just put it on me, I thought you wanted it on?”

“I…miss your voice,” John confessed in a murmur. “…And I want to swap it for rope.”

“…Rope?”

“I want to tie you up…”

Sherlock lifted his head and the flush covering half his body deepened with his rough, hitching exhale, “Oh…”

“Do you mind if I—?”

“No.” Sherlock croaked instantly, clearing his throat and looking as coy as one could look blindfolded and handcuffed. “No, I don’t mind—you’ve done that before? Tied…someone up?”

John paused with his hand curled around the black rope and blinked with embarrassment that Sherlock couldn’t see, “I…um, no. Not…not someone…”

Sherlock frowned under the blindfold for a split second and then smirked, “On yourself? My, my, I didn’t think you’d—” John cut off his sentence with a swing of his arm, catching the skin where Sherlock’s thighs met his buttocks sharply with his fingers. Sherlock’s entire body jolted at the sudden hit and John left his hand on the burning hot skin smugly. 

“I told you. I like this stuff but…but I just haven’t done much with anyone. Not everyone is interested in getting bound and gagged and…all that,” John mumbled as he soothed the skin over Sherlock’s flexing backside with teasingly gentle rubs of his fingertips. “Now, I want to…um, to frogtie you.”

Sherlock took a few steadying breaths before he spoke, “What?”

“It’s a type of…bondage…position—roll onto your back,” John told him as he pulled out the length of rope and tugged it tautly between his hands, idly shifting his weight when Sherlock shook and clenched rhythmically at the pillows. “Sherlock?”

Sherlock nodded and slowly turned around, hissing in pleasure when his pinked back and backside touched the bed and the laid out towels, “Is there anything else you want to do to me?” he drawled under his breath, slightly excited.

John blinked and looked up the front of Sherlock’s naked body, “I…um…hold still,” he muttered with a blush. “Lift your legs and bend them at the knee…”

For a moment it seemed as though Sherlock was going to reject the very idea, his body tensed and the colour in his face and chest taking on a type of shade that looked more mortified than aroused, but after several silent breaths, Sherlock did as he was asked. John watched the slow and trembling way in which Sherlock bent his legs, and moved forward to begin binding his ankles to his thighs, gently knocking Sherlock’s legs apart a bit more.

“Let me know if it feels as though it’s cutting off circulation…or, if you feel any sort of discomfort at all,” John murmured as he worked, trying not to get distracted by the way Sherlock was breathing and very faintly thrusting. He climbed on the bed between Sherlock’s legs and stared resolutely at his own moving hands. “I, um, I could tie your wrists to your ankles as well, but…might leave that until next time.”

Sherlock’s stomach muscles jumped in reply, his penis very faintly throbbing, “…Next time…”

John stroked one of Sherlock’s feet when he finished, tying off the last bit of rope and then tickling the underside of both Sherlock’s feet lightly, trailing his fingertips down the sole, “Feel okay?” he asked in a low whisper, grinning at the way Sherlock wriggled his toes and huffed with hitching laughter. “You should be secured in a way where you can’t get free but not in a way to cut off blood, so there should be no tingling or gradual loss of sensation – If you feel like you—”

“Yes. I got it the first time,” Sherlock snapped in one hurried breath. He tensed and adjusted his bound legs, and then reached down with his handcuffed hands to touch and follow the winding rope, before he succumbed with a quivering, thrilled sigh, lifting his arms above his head once more. “What now? You can’t very well spank me whilst I’m on my back, and rolling back onto my front will be a tad tricky.”

John looked him over in consideration and corrected his kneeled position between Sherlock’s legs, examining the skin of his restrained ankles as well as the light scattering of dark hair on each shin, faintly amused at how curly the hairs were, and then scraped his nails through them. The touch made Sherlock’s toes spasm, and so John tilted his head and did it again, and then scratched softly amid the gaps of rope in random places, keeping Sherlock speculating where he’d go next by letting the time between each touch lengthen, only to shorten it a second later. John added further distraction by blowing at the curly leg hairs impishly, and exhaled long, warm and lingering breaths down the underside of Sherlock’s bare feet. Sherlock jumped and ticked and jolted at each touch and wisp of breath, covered in rising goose flesh, and made a low, whimpering and tortured sound deep in his chest when John gave in to a sudden compulsion to squeeze his hips and nip at the rope coiled around Sherlock’s left thigh.

“Would you let Irene do this?” He asked impulsively and without proper thought, something within him rearing in possessive hunger and suspicion. 

Sherlock swallowed audibly and shook his head, “No…no. No.”

John looked back at Sherlock’s trousers, at the lump of Irene’s phone in the pocket, and grabbed Sherlock by his bound ankles, yanking him down the bed and lifting Sherlock’s hips up onto his lap, “No, what?”

“No…” Sherlock whispered, pausing to lick his lips and arch his head back, “…Captain.”

The husky way in which Sherlock had exhaled his rank made John snort lightly with aroused laughter, “And whose are you?” he asked, making sure to run the backs of his hand and knuckles over the curve of Sherlock’s arse, rubbing at the pink marks he’d left behind with extra pressure.

Sherlock shuddered and lifted his entire lower half up a few inches, “Yours,” he groaned heavily, “Captain.”

“Good,” John praised, lightheaded with arousal and power. “…You can keep the phone. But I don’t want to see it. Hide it in a drawer somewhere. Somewhere I won’t accidentally find it.”

Shoving Sherlock back down onto his lap strongly, he caressed both of his hands from the tops of Sherlock’s flexing feet, up along his shins, over his knees, and then swept them up both sides of his waist to his heaving chest. Sherlock’s nipples were still puckered and flushed, and John caught them abruptly between his fingers and gently twisted and rubbed them until they were a darker shade. Sherlock shifted in a controlled writhe and swallowed; grasping hold of a nearby pillow hard enough that John heard the material squeak with pressure. 

John moved to lean further over Sherlock, bending Sherlock’s bound legs towards his own chest in the process, and pushed his mouth suddenly over Sherlock’s left nipple, swiping the flat of his tongue into the hardened, warm nub just as Sherlock thrashed with a surprised shout. It hadn’t been a planned move on John’s part and somewhere in the back of his mind John realised how much he’d changed since the beginning of whatever it was that they were doing, and how much he truly wanted to tease and dominate and own Sherlock. He could taste the tang of sweat and Sherlock’s natural musk as he lathered the nipple with saliva and then sucked it up into his mouth, and was unable to stop the bubbling rumble in the back of his throat in response, the taste and smell of Sherlock overwhelming.

Pulling off once Sherlock had stilled, John inhaled and then exhaled over the wet skin, smirking when Sherlock shuddered violently, “Tell me if you don’t like something,” he said lowly, catching the side of Sherlock’s thigh and buttock with one well aimed smack.

“Honey,” Sherlock forced through his moist gasping as he rocked into the hit and touched John’s sides with his knees.

“What?” John frowned, lifting his head after a second and looking at Sherlock’s blindfolded face.

“Safeword,” he slurred and angled his head to clumsily push his slack and wet lips against John’s mouth. “For always. You said. Anything I want.”

John kissed him instinctively and continued to savour the taste of Sherlock from his own bottom lip when Sherlock dropped his head back down, “Good. Yeah. All right,” he agreed, leaning down to bite his right nipple lightly and then drag his teeth down Sherlock’s tensing stomach. Feeling almost possessed, he gripped Sherlock’s waist, heaved him up, and licked a hot and shakily eager line up Sherlock’s flushed and hard penis.

The taste of pre-ejaculate and heated, musky skin, was enough to sober him but not before Sherlock bucked up wildly with a booming groan and a flailing of his handcuffed hands. John blinked at the mad and sudden action, an action he had never done before, and dropped Sherlock back down, quickly reaching for the box to rummage around inside for something to distract himself and Sherlock from what was clearly a first for the both of them. His hands nudged the bottle of lubricant and he pulled it out slowly only to replace it and tug out the nipple clamps, attaching them to the collar. Sherlock worked out exactly what they were almost instantly and tensed and held his breath, lifting his shaking chest toward John with a low sound in his throat.

John clipped them to Sherlock’s nipples slowly, increasing the pressure just a tiny bit, and then reached for one of the small vibrators, “Okay?” 

“Yes…” Sherlock nodded rapidly and jerked his head up at the sound of the low whirl of the vibrator as John switched it on and brought it close to nudge first Sherlock’s right and then left nipple. As Sherlock inhaled sharply through his nose and teeth, John bent down and nipped at the area on Sherlock’s clavicle that Irene had marked at the start of their strange situation, and grinned jerkily at Sherlock’s deep rumble of exultant laughter in response.


	14. Only you

“Sherlock,” John started uneasily, after five seconds of teasing him with the small vibrator across Sherlock’s pinched nipples and flushed chest, and looked at the bottle of lubricant apprehensively. He wanted something, wanted to do something else to Sherlock in his bound and submissive state, something, which he hadn’t thought he’d ever want to do to a man, “I need to know…you know…if you’ve done anything sexually and what exactly it is you’ve done? You told me about your sexuality but didn’t really divulge anything else. – Was what Mycroft hinted at true? Have you not…done…anything?” 

“You-you’re asking me this now?” Sherlock scoffed, albeit breathlessly, and wriggled his toes, tensing his bound legs meaningfully. “Really? Now?”

John glared and let the vibrator roll down Sherlock’s shaking stomach, catching it before it drifted further than his navel, “Yes,” he answered curtly, punctuating it with a sharp slap to Sherlock’s left buttock. “I’m really asking this now—You didn’t know how to use a bloody cock ring for heaven’s sake! I just…this is all, you know, good, fine, brilliant…but I might want to…try something… and I don’t want to do it if you’ve never even done anything like it before, because it could seriously freak you out and I don’t want to force you into anything or—”

“Enough,” Sherlock complained with a wavering voice, and reached out with his handcuffed hands to touch and caress John’s face and ears gently, “I trust you – And if I don’t want or like something, I’ll just use the safeword. Seeing as that’s what it’s there for.”

Rolling his eyes at Sherlock’s sarcastic tone, John nodded into Sherlock’s hands and, before he could think too much into it, he turned to catch one of Sherlock’s fingers with a quick kiss, “Fine...”

“You’re meant to be the dominant one in this liaison. Stop being so annoyingly hesitant and do whatever you want with and to me,” Sherlock told him with an unsteady but wide grin, threading his fingers through John’s fringe.

“Fine,” John huffed with half a laugh, and waited until Sherlock dropped his hands back above his head to then sweep the vibrator teasingly across the head of Sherlock’s cock with a dark and mischievous look. Sherlock reacted to the touch with a choking gasp, and scrabbled gracelessly beneath John with a following high-pitched whine, grabbing at pillows and his own hair to stop himself from reaching down. “I still want to know what you’ve done – Both on your own and with someone.”

Sherlock didn’t answer until John smacked his backside thrice and pressed the vibrator into the hot skin of his perineum, “Nothing,” he almost screamed, wriggling his hips roughly and covering his face with his trembling hands. John pulled the vibrator away and tapped the side of Sherlock’s waist sharply with his fingers to snap Sherlock out of his suddenly glazed and trembling state. “Wh-what? John…I just told you…”

“Nothing at all?” John asked him with a frown, flicking his eyes to his box in thought.

“Masturbation. Obviously,” Sherlock panted, with practically his entire body quivering and pink with arousal, “Kissing. Oral – giving mostly. I…wasn’t really one for receiving…but it’s been…a long time…I might have deleted a lot of it, because it wasn’t relevant to my life…”

“Anything else?”

Sherlock swallowed several times and then licked his lips, frowning under the blindfold, “What…exactly are you asking me?”

John found he couldn’t voice what it was he wanted to ask and blushed, looking down at Sherlock’s crotch and then lower, following the curved lines of his slightly splayed and marked buttocks. With a deep breath, John turned off the small vibrator and put it down, leaving his hands free to cup Sherlock’s bottom and lift him up. John glanced up along Sherlock’s body to see him questioningly tilting his blindfolded head in John’s direction, and swallowed the lump in his throat to purposely blow a quick and short burst of air against the intimate clench of skin between Sherlock’s buttocks. Sherlock was almost completely hairless there and John felt his cheeks burn as he stared at the fluttering skin, involuntarily comparing him to his past girlfriend’s, judging their soft and womanly curves against Sherlock’s lean and masculine lines. Sherlock was the complete opposite of what John was into, so why did he feel the familiar itch under his skin to bring Sherlock apart under his hands and mouth? How did any of it make any sense?

“Oh…” Sherlock said quietly, and the skin pulsated before John’s eyes as Sherlock clenched his arse and marginally closed his legs, “I…don’t—what precisely do you want to do?”

Lowering Sherlock’s backside with a self-conscious and humiliated exhale, John shook his head with a shrug, until he realised Sherlock couldn’t see him, “I…I don’t know—It’s not what you think. I don’t want to…you know…but I have a…certain thing that I use that I was thinking about…using…on…you…”

“…And that certain “thing” is?”

“You know…”

Sherlock shifted position, sliding closer to John, rubbing warmly up his lap, “I really don’t.”

“Oh for—I have anal…things. A vibrator and that,” John disclosed, rubbing his face as he adjusted his kneeled position and massaged a hand up and down Sherlock’s side unconsciously. “Have you…ever…?”

“No. Can’t say I have,” Sherlock revealed with a low, thick, and pleased noise at John’s stroking fingers. “It’s never really crossed my mind – What if I… evacuate?”

John shot Sherlock a cocky grin that he couldn’t see, “I’m a doctor.”

Sherlock huffed, “Even so, I’d rather not defecate on you, John.”

Laughing lightly, John smoothed both hands over Sherlock’s bound legs, “We don’t have to.”

“…But you want to?”

“No. No, I just…it crossed my mind because I…I’ve…” John trailed off into uncomfortable silence and rocked forward to press his mouth to one of Sherlock’s knees impulsively, calmed by the smell of his skin, “Let’s forget about it.”

Sherlock shifted meekly, “No. It’s—I don’t mind if you want to try that,” he told him, still breathing roughly in excitement, “I didn’t know I’d like you spanking me but I obviously do, and I definitely liked when you licked my penis, so the same could be said for—”

“Are you sure? I don’t even know why I thought of it. This is all so…so…” John gesticulated oddly, unable to find the words, and then grumbled. “I don’t know…”

“I trust you,” Sherlock said again gently and clenched his toes as he reached for John with a jangle of his handcuffs, “and I’m quite enjoying all this teasing.”

John looked up as Sherlock bit down on his bottom lip, and leaned into Sherlock’s seeking hands, “Yeah?”

“Oh yes.”

With a very slight hesitation and another burning blush, John reached for the bottle of lubricant and a dark coloured butt plug with a loud clearing of his throat, “Right,” he began, taking out a condom packet as well, “it, um, it’s not that big…”

Sherlock chuckled and squirmed closer to John, pushing his hips and bottom further up John’s lap, and as John rolled the condom over the plug and opened the bottle of lubricant, Sherlock stilled and breathed heavily through his nose, listening and quivering in anticipation. Sherlock’s penis was immensely rosy, firm and glistening, and John gave it a quick glance to try and judge how far away from orgasm Sherlock might be and if he should retrieve the cock ring like before. 

The first touch of John’s slicked fingers made Sherlock jerk so strongly, that John gripped his hip with his other hand, “All right?” he asked with a croaky tone. “Sorry. Should have warned you a bit.”

“I apologise in advance if I…if it makes me…”

John kissed Sherlock’s knee again, “It’s okay. I’ve, um, done this before. With…with partners and…myself, so everything is fine. It’s all fine—Plus, like I said, I’m a doctor. I’ve seen and dealt with everything you can imagine,” he told Sherlock in a soothing voice and straightened his spine with an abundance of lustful heat as he returned his fingers to touching Sherlock. “Just relax. It will feel…weird, but it should be pleasurable after a while. And if you feel like you want to…go, don’t worry it should pass. – If it hurts, at all, please let me know. For this to…um, for this to work, you need to be relaxed, okay?”

As John took his time to get Sherlock used to the touch of his fingertips and the stinging burn when he finally breached him, John noticed that Sherlock’s penis had gradually reduced in size faintly, rolling half-soft over the toned bumps of Sherlock’s stomach muscles, and he frowned a little, glancing at Sherlock’s face to try and assess his expression. Sherlock was breathing deeply and had his mouth open, his brow softly furrowed in concentration and his hands flexing and rubbing against one another in a distracting and soothing motion, a motion that reminded John of when Sherlock played his violin in the afternoon sunlight. Perhaps he was recounting a piece of music to relax? John tried to recall if he’d seen the same finger movements before but after another few elegant flicks of Sherlock’s fingers, John gave up and focused more on the heat emitting off Sherlock’s naked skin.

Slowly, John pushed two fingers inside Sherlock and curled them, clasping Sherlock’s waist with his other hand in preparation for what he was about to do, his mouth quirking on a knowing grin when he found what he was looking for and very lightly touched. He had done the same sort of examination a hundred of times before and knew exactly what he was searching for, knew exactly how it felt personally, and knew how Sherlock was going to react. 

Sherlock, as predicted, bucked violently with a shrill outcry of surprise and shuddered, “Okay?” John whispered, stroking the tip of his finger over the same place, circling it teasingly and feeling his grin widen with satisfaction at Sherlock answering keening moan. “Good. I’m going to keep this up for a bit and then move on to something…more, you know, something else. All right? – I’m just going to apply more lube first. It’s a slow process, but we’ll get there.”

“It’s…uncomfortable,” Sherlock panted, the muscles in his thighs and hips twitching, “and…strange. Burns a bit.”

“The, um, the insertion of my fingers? Yeah,” John nodded and dribbled lubricant between Sherlock’s arse cheeks with a dirty and discernibly shameless expression that Sherlock was unaware of, “but it’ll get better. The pleasure should overtake all that soon. However, if not, let me know and we’ll stop.” He ended the sentence with a well-aimed smack to the side of Sherlock’s thigh and left buttock, enjoying how Sherlock groaned and rocked eagerly.

Sherlock swallowed and lifted his head wonkily, “What are you going to do once it’s—?”

“Going to try three fingers now,” John interrupted after he’d coated his left hand generously in lubricant, carefully and unhurriedly penetrating Sherlock with his funnelled digits, pressing deep and stroking along the bump of Sherlock’s prostate to make the penetration more pleasurable. Sherlock’s penis was fully erect again, bouncing and throbbing, dousing Sherlock’s flushed skin in pre-ejaculate as he writhed and bucked. John eyed it, considering another impulsive and possessive thought, and then bent without thinking too much on it with a quick glance up to Sherlock’s arched throat, extending his tongue enough to briefly taste the heated exposed skin on underside of Sherlock’s erection. The taste wasn’t unpleasant and he tried not to panic at the implications of his curiosity, he had already done more than he ever thought he’d do with another man and the need to taste Sherlock again, after doing it twice already, was almost maddening. 

Sherlock froze at the contact and trembled, panting through his teeth, “…You don’t have to…”

“I know,” John breathed, blowing up the length of Sherlock’s penis, extraordinarily pleased when it twitched in response. Leaning his head on Sherlock’s bound right leg, John thrust his fingers in and out of Sherlock for several long minutes, listening to the changing rhythm of Sherlock’s breathing, and his hitched and stifled whimpers and moans, and then let go of his waist to bring the plug closer. “Okay?”

“Yes,” Sherlock whispered and bit down on his lip as John pulled his fingers out. “John…” He trailed off into awkward silence and then reached down with his handcuffed hands, opening his hands and waiting, seeming excessively vulnerable and excited.

John reached to entwine his right hand with Sherlock’s left, smiling when Sherlock grabbed John’s wrist with his remaining hand, “All right?” he asked again softly, gracelessly coating the plug in lubricant one-handed and then pressing the tip of it against Sherlock very gradually. “Sherlock?”

“Yes,” He repeated, even quieter than before but no less eager, his fingers tightening around John’s.

Working the plug patiently and slowly into Sherlock, John leaned clumsily to kiss his knuckles and stroke his hand, “Let me know if you need to stop,” he told him, eyes fixated on the device disappearing into Sherlock’s body to settle up between his plump buttocks attractively, the flared base nestled comfortably, and contrasting appealingly, against Sherlock’s rosy skin. “Oh. I forgot to mention one thing…”

Sherlock swallowed, overwhelmed, and tightened his grip on John’s hand nervously, “Wh-what?”

“It vibrates,” John murmured huskily and smirked as he switched it on, pressing the button at the base to cycle quickly to his own preferred vibration speed and pattern, and watched as Sherlock reacted instantly with a gasp, trying to kick out his bound legs and squirming tensely. “If it’s too much, let me know.”

As Sherlock trembled and fidgeted, John moved Sherlock’s handcuffed hands back above his head and began massaging his convulsive torso and stomach, ignoring Sherlock’s hard, red and oozing penis and focusing instead on his clamped nipples, tugging on them and caressing around them in teasingly circles. Stroking up the column of Sherlock’s throat with his right hand a moment later, John lowered his left to cup the warm and tensed shape of Sherlock’s scrotum, kneading it gently and smirking when Sherlock gargled in delight and strained his neck, shaking all over as he grabbed at pillows and the headboard madly.

Having Sherlock react so eagerly to his touches, and the plug that he’d only ever used on himself, was incredibly arousing and John glanced quickly to his own crotch and at the prominent bulge of his squashed erection in his trousers before he leaned a little more over Sherlock and mouthed at his chin. Sherlock’s Adam’s apple bobbed above the collar and John smeared his mouth down toward it, breathing hotly against it and licking, happy when Sherlock whimpered lowly.

“Do you like it?” John whispered, moving down to nose lightly across Sherlock’s collarbones.

Sherlock quivered fiercely and nodded, “Yes…yes…”

“Good,” John growled and reached to nudge his fingers against the plug in small, teasing intervals, watching Sherlock sweat and jolt in reaction, his toes flexing. Everything about Sherlock’s body was becoming engraved into John’s mind and he slapped friskily at Sherlock’s stomach until it was pink and Sherlock was struggling in enjoyment. 

As John teased every inch of Sherlock’s neck, torso, hips, legs and backside in the minutes that followed he felt his gaze dragged down to Sherlock’s penis again and again, and swallowed thickly, flushing and clenching his jaw in trepidation at the yearning that scratched at him restlessly. He could still vaguely taste Sherlock’s skin and pre-ejaculate on his tongue and he rubbed the tang around his mouth until he determinedly grabbed Sherlock’s hips to lift him up sturdily and suck the head of Sherlock’s penis into his mouth without warning. The unfamiliar sensation was both scary and exciting, and John opened his mouth a little more to accommodate Sherlock’s girth, finding the weight of his penis strange but not exactly unpleasant.

Sherlock froze with a whine, and a thick ooze of pre-ejaculate seeped across John’s tongue, “John…John, don’t…” Sherlock whispered, squirming and lifting his head to blindly look at him with an exceptionally red face. “John!”

Huffing through his nose, John pulled away, letting Sherlock’s penis slap wetly back down on his stomach, “What?” he asked croakily with a loop of nervousness, a little giddy on what he’d just done. “Use the safeword if you don’t like something—”

“It’s not that I don’t like it,” Sherlock told him, dropping his head back down and covering his face with his hands until he got some of his breathing under control. “John…I don’t know how much longer I can last. Especially if you…do things like that. – Being without my sight only heightens my other senses and I’m going crazy trying not to…embarrass myself and end the session.”

“Session?” John repeated in amusement, blowing up the wet, firm skin just to see Sherlock spasm. Checking Sherlock’s pulse and his temperature, John shifted to mouth at Sherlock’s left thigh, sucking up a mouthful of skin roughly to mark with his tongue and teeth. When Sherlock exhaled a shaky breath and moaned, John moved suddenly back and all but shoved Sherlock onto his side, and then over and up onto his bound legs, kneeling close between Sherlock’s feet to nudge the crotch of his trousers into the plug.

“What if I want you to…embarrass yourself?” John murmured, slapping the skin of Sherlock’s lower back, and smoothing it afterwards with a gentle kiss that made Sherlock shake more than the actual hit. “But only when I say so.”

Sherlock gathered a pillow with his bound hands, pulling it under his head and clutching it tightly, “That’s why you turned me over,” he huffed with a curling and twitching grin, the skin of his face, nape and back sweaty with high arousal.

“Yeah,” John laughed and reached under to adjust the towel, righting it. “You ready?”

“Do you…want me to beg?”

“No. No, you don’t have to do that for this,” John breathed and kissed his lower back again, tasting the sweat there with a spark of arousal. Whilst he distracted Sherlock with kisses he dribbled more lube on his left hand and reached under to suddenly grab his erection, pushing and twisting on the vibrating plug at the same time. “Hearing you moan is good enough.”

He grinned widely as Sherlock cried out in shock and pleasure, his legs trembling, and began a tight and brisk rhythm with his hand, stroking Sherlock’s penis quicker and harder, listening to the crack in Sherlock voice and the way he bucked awkwardly on his bound legs. Just as it felt and sounded like Sherlock was on the edge of orgasm, John squeezed the base of his shaft firmly and bent down to bite the lush shape of Sherlock’s buttock when he shouted in surprise, keeping the climax at bay. John laughed darkly when Sherlock whimpered and whinged, his words mainly gibberish and slurred, and started up another brisk rhythm, pushing and tugging at the plug in time with the upstroke of his hand.

John denied Sherlock his orgasm twice more and then licked a stripe up Sherlock’s twitching, “You’re so wet,” he whispered throatily to a rasping and whining Sherlock, trailing his fingers over the weeping tip of his penis, pressing down on the slit in a smooth and pressured circling of his thumb.

“John…John…please…” Sherlock begged in a slur, his thighs quivering uncontrollably. 

“Just remind me again, who you belong to?”

Sherlock bucked and twisted, overwhelmed, “You. You, John. You. Just you. Please! You! You…you…you…” he chanted over and over.

Smirking and highly aroused, John slowly twisted the plug until it was angled a little more against Sherlock prostate and focused on squeezing and stroking the head of Sherlock’s penis until he convulsed bodily, stopped breathing for a moment, and rutted erratically, moving frantically even as his penis thickened and jerked, spurting strongly over John’s fingers. Sherlock wailed loudly after taking a sharp intake of breath, and tautly shuddered through his intense orgasm, fisting his hands.

John turned off the plug and carefully pulled it free during Sherlock’s strained writhing, “Good,” he murmured shakily while Sherlock trembled, and took both hands away from Sherlock, panting and staring at the ejaculate coating his hand. “…Good…”

A burst of overpowering and dizzying heat made John thoughtlessly fumble with his trousers, freeing his erection, and he used the mixture of lubricant and ejaculate to stroke himself quickly, grunting and leaning close to Sherlock, mouthing at his back until he left a line of bruises along Sherlock’s bowing spine. After a second John let go of himself to turn Sherlock face up again, shuffling to capture Sherlock’s wet and open mouth in a messy kiss as he stroked himself harder and faster, only able to fall over the edge once he frantically tugged the blindfold off and looked into Sherlock’s glazed and fluttering eyes.

Groaning deeply, John stared into Sherlock’s face as he painted Sherlock’s heaving chest in four thick and intense bursts. Sherlock slowly glanced down once John was spent, and then lifted an eyebrow with an interested expression, and John exhaled in a rush, feeling instantly embarrassed but too lethargic and contented to do more than shiver. Sherlock looked unsteady and satisfied and incredibly attractive, his face still red and the entire length of his body twitching indiscriminately in aftershock, his muscles going into small spasms.

“It’s apparently good for the skin…” John joked and smiled awkwardly when Sherlock looked back into his face with a rumble of laughter. Sherlock’s pupils dilated as they kept eye contact and John felt his heart stutter as he leaned away to untie Sherlock’s legs, take the clamps off his nipples, and help clean Sherlock’s chest and back, wiping between his buttocks quickly with a fleeting check at the state of him. “You, um, you okay? How are you feeling?”

“Languid,” Sherlock mumbled, his voice incredibly croaky and rusty from overuse, and he rolled away when he was all but clean, sprawling back on his bed and lifting his wrists to John to have the handcuffs removed. “Next time you can…do it properly. So I can’t move as easily.”

“You sure?”

Sherlock rolled his eyes and stretched his legs flexibly, “Get me a glass of water and then come lounge with me,” he told John, playfully smirking at him as John lifted his brow at the arrogant tone. “Please.”

John momentarily rubbed and massaged the faint lines on Sherlock’s skin where the rope had pressed, “All right,” he said with a sigh and shuffled off the bed, stretching out his own legs with a grimace of pleasure and tucking himself away. As he walked out of the bedroom he went by Sherlock’s trousers and gazed down at the shape of Irene’s phone with a glare, fighting off the immature desire to stick his tongue out at it.

“She’s nothing compared to you,” Sherlock told him perceptively and looked over at John when he stopped in the doorway. “Only you, John.”

“Right.” John nodded with a soft and expanding smile, “Only you,” he replied meaningfully, and blushed at the beaming smile directed his way in response.

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback fuels me!
> 
> [Gem's Tumblr](http://gem-gem-bites.tumblr.com/)


End file.
